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Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness

Updated on date by author

I recently published an article on Labour’s position (or lack of it) on Brexit. You can find the article at Bylines Scotland. It provoked an angry visceral reaction from Labour ideologues on social media. Louis told me the article was incorrect and badly written. When I asked him to point out the inaccuracies and poor writing, he couldn’t. Eventually he told me that we must all keep quiet about Brexit, deliver a crushing defeat to the Tories in the local elections and then Rishi Sunak would call a General Election. I asked him to explain his logic. He refused and drifted off into the notion that the UK will be ended if a General Election does not happen in 2023.

Sadly Louis refused to justify his appraisal of the article. And he claims to be a scientist.

Louis’ logic from the exchange can be summarised here:

The Tories suffer a crushing defeat on May 4th.

Sunak must then call a General Election.

He does this so that he can suffer another …. crushing defeat.

Can anyone help me figure out how this works? Call me cynical, but politicians do not call elections that they intend to lose. I agree it’s not impossible but it would require significant public and political pressure. With the nurses having caved in on a pay deal yesterday, I sense that the Tories are now over the hump of public unrest, due to the passivity of the British people. We’ll have to see …

Another chap called John simply called me a silly infant. I asked him to justify his statement. He could not. I don’t mind being called an idiot, but I do mind it when the people doing it cannot justify their insults. Several people have apologised privately on behalf of John, telling me that (a) he’s a bit old (so am I) (b) he’s a bit nutty (do I have to put up with that?) and (c) he is horrible to lots of people so that’s OK (does that make it right?). Here are some of John’s tweets:

No explanation, no apology – the same behaviours as used by Brexiteers

A clear demonstration of learned helplessness

I was also schooled online by Supertanskiii that ‘now is not the time to mention Brexit’. I beg to differ Tan. Airbrushing the word Brexit out of the lexicon is a one way journey, sponsored by the Tories and Labour alike. Brexit is the single most important socio-economic, political, legal and environmental disaster of our age. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Supertanskiii is a potent online campaigner, but I fear she is emotionally addicted to Labour

John’s views are symptomatic of what is called in the trade ‘learned helplessness’. Remainers lost two elections and a referendum through setting low expectations, accepting rules on democracy which Brexiteers ignored them, believing that we don’t deserve any better and so on. This extract from the book Reboot Britain summarises the ‘condition’:

Learned Helplessness
Learned Helplessness – Click the graphic to read more

So, it seems that we are back into the binary political trap that delivered Brexit. Tony Blair was right when he said that the Labour party often suffers from the triumph of ideology over pragmatism, a disease which caused the Tory party to cannabalise itself with Brexit. Have a look at the Scottish Bylines article and let me know what is inaccurate or stupid about it in the comments or via Twitter. To my Labour chums, I repeat my usual challenging unemotional questions:

What are the differences between a red or blue Brexit? No one will explain them and I have asked many times.

There is a clear business case to support the argument that Brexit has failed. Why won’t Keir Starmer move to this position?

Why will the right-wing media eat Starmer for breakfast if he states that Brexit isn’t working? Read the point on sunk costs in the article to understand this point better.

What makes people believe that Labour will reform the FPTP electoral system in a binary prisoner’s dilemma, all the while they believe that it benefits them? By the way, all the research evidence from UKICE points to the fact that Labour would benefit from electoral reform, in terms of votes, seats and number of terms in power.

If 70% of Labour members wanted to Remain, why are they so docile? What does this say about Labour’s approach to democracy?

Why do people believe that Keir Starmer will rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market when he has flatly refused to do so on many occasion? Surely this makes him a liar? The right wing media will certainly be all over this if he were to gain power.

Hard Labour
Hard Labour – Click to read the article. Image by P Paton

To understand the various options for joining anew, please see London 4 Europe’s article on this.

Join us at our next Reboot Britain meeting on Wed May 10th May at 8 pm via Zoom. Find the link at Reboot Britain.

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britastrophe, Elections, Keir Starmer, Labour, Leadership, Rejoin EU | Leave a reply

Arise, Sir Keir Starmer

Updated on date by author

At this point in time, Sir Keir Starmer says he plans to back Johnson’s oven ruined Brexit. We must change this through writing letters to Keir and Labour Party MPs. Here are some sample letters to use. Please adapt them for your own MP and send a copy to Keir. It is best if you write your own letters but please use these for inspiration. Arise, Sir Keir Starmer.

The e-mail format to use is firstname.lastname.mp@parliament.uk Look your MP up at Write To Them.

Dear Keir,

I write to urge you to at least ask your party to abstain from the Brexit Trade deal vote. Many people are surprised that you said you would back it without even seeing it but I also understand that you are fighting an untrustworthy PM. In such circumstances, it pays to learn from Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and the world’s best poker players, by not revealing your final strategy until you have seen Johnson’s final position and voting intentions close to the vote.

I wrote this press statement for your elaboration, should you choose to abstain:

“On Christmas Eve, I was minded to back Boris Johnson’s deal in the national interest. I acted in good faith, placing my trust in the PM and put my faith in the Brexit deal as presented. It has since become apparent that the deal is far from what he presented. I have today tabled amendments that would have made the deal better but these have been rejected. As a result I cannot in all good conscience support a deal that is bad for the people of Britain. At the same time, I must take account of the views of my MPs and party members. In the words of Bonar Law ‘I am their leader, I must follow them’. I ask Labour MPs to abstain in the vote.”

You know full well that Johnson will make sure Labour get the blame for his Brexit as he has a reliable track record of deflection. Back the deal at your peril and ultimately that of your party.

Yours sincerely

Peter Cook

Bragg gets it spot on every time.

Dear friends and comrades

We are just 3 days away from Boris Johnson’s bad Brexit deal being voted on in parliament.   While this government has pulled us back from the brink of a catastrophic No Deal outcome, we must be under no illusions. Johnson’s Brexit deal will damage our economy and leave us all poorer during the worst recession in 300 years.   The government will get its deal through the Commons – I have  no doubt about that – but it should not be endorsed by anyone who believes Boris Johnson’s Brexit is bad for Britain.

We should hold this government, and this government alone, responsible for this terrible deal. Opposition MPs must refuse to endorse it and lay the blame squarely at the door of this government.

This so-called free trade agreement in the history of free trade agreements is the only free trade agreement that actually erect barriers to trade. We in the Labour Party should not get our hands soiled by walking in the voting lobby alongside Boris Johnson he has negotiated this insanity which will leave us all worse off.

The purpose of a Free Trade deal is to remove barriers to trading across frontiers. Having read this EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement I can say with some degree of certainty that this is not a free trade deal it is not even a Canada Style deal which the Prime Minister articulates. The deal is a regressive agreement because imposes barriers to Trading across frontiers. It imposes extra bureaucracy for businesses to adhere to. That means extra costs of doing business and that will mean lost jobs and reduced profits. When companies are having their profit margins hit by the extra bureaucracy they will take the view that it will be far easier to conduct their business from within the EU than from within the UK.

Whilst it’s welcome that there are no tariffs on exported or imported goods the extra cost imposed on businesses by the extra bureaucracy will make the fact that there are no tariffs rather meaningless.

That is why I am calling on you to refuse to endorse the deal by abstaining. should you on examination of the agreement decide to vote with the government I won’t hold it against you after all we are all Labour and you must do what you think is right according to the dictates of you own conscience and I do believe that this matter is a conscience decision.All I would ask is after careful consideration you do what you think is right.

Kind Regards,

**************************

Arise, Sir Keir Starmer

Dear Keir,

I am sorry but you are entirely wrong to back the Brexit deal . There are no advantages to Labour in doing so and you will be a hostage to Johnson’s gibes for the future. This is not a good deal it is not even an acceptable deal it goes nowhere near meeting the 6 tests you set out. It is not up to the Labour Party to make sure Johnson doesn’t end up with no deal by default. He has to sort that one out for himself.

Many of the Labour voters in the Red wall seats did not vote in 2019 turnout was relatively low . Proper analysis of the figures shows many of the former Labour voters in those seats started voting UKIP or Tory years ago. You have bought in to the Southern /Westminster narrative about the 2019 election. Many who did not vote couldn’t vote for you predecessor .

Unforgivably, you are taking most Labour members who voted remain for granted and assuming you can count on our support. That is a big assumption. You are now following a path likely to alienate many Remainers as well as not winning over leavers. Why would they choose to leave Johnson and Co? They are not going to vote for the imitation when they can have the real thing.

Labour is about to become completely irrelevant if you are foolish enough to vote for this deal.

Yours sincerely,

**************************

Dear xxx,

I am as furious as I am sure you are to find that Boris Johnson’s Brexit bears no resemblance to what was promised. It is a bad deal for Britain that will cause economic and social harm to our country. 

The Government has run down the clock on negotiations with foolish negotiating tactics, leaving MPs with a very difficult decision when it comes to the upcoming vote on the deal. But this is not a vote between deal or no deal – there are three ways to use your vote. It is clear that the government will get its deal through the Commons – there is no doubt about that – but it should not be given a ringing endorsement by anyone who believes Boris Johnson’s Brexit is bad for Britain.  

It is in the national interest that Boris Johnson’s Government takes full responsibility for this bad deal, and that Labour is not seen to endorse this moment of national self-harm. Any sense of opposition parties taking joint ownership of this deal will make it more difficult to hold this government to account for the damage it will cause. 

Abstaining on a matter of such great national importance may be difficult to do.  But it is an honest position, which recognises the impossibility of rubber-stamping this bad Brexit, and of risking a harmful no-deal outcome.

That is why I am writing to you today to ask: will you abstain on this bad Brexit deal?  

Kind regards

With thanks to James Chespy, Ellin Stein, Moez Adamjee and Catherine Reynolds for these.

Arise, Sir Keir Starmer

Bragg about it.

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Britastrophe, Europe, Labour, Politics | Leave a reply
Brexit-Psyche

Portraits of Brexiteers

Updated on date by author

As part of our continuing work to Brexorcise the population as a preparatory step on the road to rejoining the EU, I encountered two tough cases recently. Selecting your target is vital if you want to make the most of your time, but given that I go out daily with an open invite to talk to people painted on my t-shirt, bicycle etc. one cannot always choose your ‘client’ for Brexorcism. Learn the underlying psychologies, sociology and therapeutic approaches here. The two individuals were themselves quite complex and this underlines the need to use personalised approaches to reach such people.

The Club Landlord

I had the ultimate confessional from the Club Landlord last night. A man in his 50’s who was jailed for violent crimes in his 20’s. He has taken to God of late, believes in Brexit mainly because he watches You Tube videos that tell him that the whole world is a conspiracy and that most of the time we are lied to. Amongst the lies that he believes we have been told include that COVID exists. The conversation went on for hours. He is a lost cause in terms of Brexorcism so I chose to just listen to him. He has picked up the term critical thinking from somewhere but tends to go only to the internet for his information, and then, a fairly narrow channel of material. He voted for Brexit as a protest vote and does not care about the outcomes, even though he has teenage children. I know him quite well and mainly feel sad for him.

There is no single standard Brexit Brain. Learn how to enter them by clicking on the image.

The Trade Unionist

I stopped at a cafe with my bicycle. A man about 50-60 approached and observed my signage, opening up with “I would die for the King and my country”. After some introductions, he self identified as a trade unionist. I imagined him to be left of centre and enquired “what do you think about Brexit?”. He replied that it was the best thing that had happened to Britain as we could make our own Labour laws. He winced as I pointed out that Liz Truss plans to roll back the working time directive which prevents exploitation of the masses, but dodged the question about this. I asked him about what he was now able to do because of Brexit and he answered with some twaddle about WW II. I restated the question but he returned to WW II. I asked “Were you in WW II?” He replied yes but clearly this was not true. He eventually admitted that the country was just the same as it was before Brexit, in other words, that there were no benefits. We moved on to Mick Lynch and host of other topics and it was hard to get away from him. Finally we discussed the 2019 election, Boris, Corbyn and so on. I explained from personal experience of standing a cat for election that my experience on the doorstep demonstrated that Boris and Brexit did not win but Corbyn lost, in part due to our populist media but possibly due to his own presentation and policies in a word that is more sensitive to style over substance. To my surprise, he revealed that he voted for Boris Johnson !! A trade unionist, Brexiteer who voted for a right wing populist. To quote Jim Morrison “People are strange”.

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Culture, Labour, Leadership, Partygate, Politics, Sovereignty | 1 Reply
Brexit BS

This week’s quotes

Updated on date by author

From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief.

Tory Brexit Scum

This week’s quotes: “open goals that Labour are constantly missing … we have had uncaring people in high office before … rarely have they been as uncaring and incompetent as Priti Patel and Sue Ellen Braverman …disaster of Brexit … fake balance has corrupted TV in recent decade … Brexiters and Tory Party … to blame for everything … what does Labour think it is playing at? … Jeremy *unt knows that doctor’s pay has fallen relative to inflation since the Tories came into power … we are losing British trained doctors … go abroad where the pay and conditions are better … raw sewage pumped into English rivers on average 825 times a day … 

Frack off …

What the papers say

Lawyers for the Daily Mail successfully argued in the High Court that that the names of Daily Mail journalists accused of crimes should remain secret … Graham Johnson confessed to fabricating stories for the Murdoch press …  Gavin Burrows has provided contradictory witness statements to both sides in the Mail litigation … prompted chair of the UK statistics authority to write to the Tory Party to say their infographic was misleading … former Energy Minister Chris Skidmore MP … has been receiving salary of £80,000 a year as an adviser to a company … setting up a business.. Former education minister Gavin Williamson … will be paid £50,000 a year for seven hours work a month … News UK, the company that launched Talk TV lost owner Rupert Murdoch £4M in last financial year … even more than £31M lost by rival GB News… 

Cost of living

Britain’s annual rate of inflation is 10% … still stubbornly high and twice that of US … populist economic model is bust … extraordinary … nightmare … reckless economic model … government has treated business with contempt … only bad options left … surging costs have kept the annual inflation rate in double figures … Britain’s post pandemic inflation rate … stubbornly higher than many of its peers … Tories will be remembered as the party who made most people poorer over 14 years and screwed up public services … there are more credible ways to count inflation … NHS is a stressful and poorly paid place … struggles to retain staff … junior doctors choose to work overseas … junior doctors left the profession a huge cost to the taxpayers for training them … something has gone badly wrong … real pay has fallen to around 14% below levels in 2010 …

The NHS

150,000 vacancies in vital jobs across the NHS … method is not working … Australia, New Zealand and Canada are only too happy to employ doctors we have paid £250,000 to 5000,000 to train … overseas recruitment is drying up because word is out NHS conditions are awful … excess deaths and waiting lists already high … UK has fewer doctors per head of population than most comparable countries and worse public health … worst public health crisis in a century … profiteering pack … profits of £78.4 M on income of £468M … extreme profits made by suppliers of PPE and testing kit … multi billion pound extent to which taxpayers were overpaying …

Brexit NHS Farage
We’re still waiting for the £350 million EVERY week Johnson

Brexit superpowers failing

We have no chance of being the new Silicon Valley and the Tories know it … all such promises will remain hollow … Tory politicians are anti Woke, despise the left wing ‘blob’ of human rights lawyers and civil servants … they want to represent the ‘somewheres’ and not the rootless cosmopolitan ‘anywheres’ … the ‘anywheres’ can take a hint … they will go anywhere to avoid the hate speech the Tories are spouting … what are the chances of UK emulating California … Zero … UK is lagging because we de-industrialised under Thatcher … our education system produces too few teenagers with maths and science skills … EU has agreed to pour in €6.2B of subsidies into semiconductor design … our young innovators are barred …

London is an attractive place for high flyers … in banking … Australia has become a Mecca for UK qualified doctors and nurses … Brexit has seriously damaged Britain’s ability to be part of the tech innovations story …  youngsters have to believe that this is a country with a future, not just a past … Richy Scumbag has always been reluctant to talk about Infosys, the Indian IT giant founded by his father in law … government’s own database has shown the company has been involved in £172 M worth of public sector contracts … Scumbag’s wife holds 38.9M shares worth around £89M in Infosys … dividends £12M a year … not liable for UK tax …

Raab C Brexit

Dominic Raas … massively unpopular … more than half his constituents do not want him or his ideology… graceless remorseless death of a desperate man … Raas wrote the least contrite resignation letter of the modern era … Raas told the BBC that civil servants were out to sabotage Brexit, parole reform and overhaul of human rights laws … Tory Peer Lord Marland said exit of Raas … a conspiracy by the civil service … if anything the opposite is true … Raas did not recognise wise counsel when offered it … Johnson claimed ‘the civil service wants to destroy me’ … remorseless attacks on Civil Servants … is deeply corrosive to good government … populist politics … premise that there are simple solutions to complex problems … when the absurdity of this becomes clear the next step is the attribution of blame: the vilification of people supposedly obstruct the popular will … Judges are enemies of the people …

Parliament is unlawfully prorogued … civil servants are plotting against popular ministers … The civil service deserves a gold plated ‘thank you’ for keeping the country running while the Tories have been preoccupied with a seven year long nervous collapse over Brexit, the economy and tribal identify … Raas was one of the worst Foreign Secretaries of modern times (a disaster during the retreat from Kabul) … Underlying this is the weakness of Richy Scumbag … looked desperately for a loophole that would allow him to keep Raas … Scumbag clings to Sue Ellen Braverman ,,, she is a human shield between him and the far right … Scumbag presides over a hung Parliament of factions … just waiting to see how bad the damage is in local government elections … Tory edifice continues to crumble and the country suffers accordingly … Raas … pathetic conspiracy theories are just another manifestation of this protracted decline … a reminder that desperate people really will say anything …

Murdoch

I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the bible and burst into flames … an alternative facts’ media empire … did concede that Fox News promoted 2020 election falsehoods … Murdoch has got away with it … what is $787.5M  when you have another $20B  to spare … Fox News broadcast of lies … the settlement is tax deductible … Murdoch thought ‘the election is a hoax’ thing ‘really crazy’ … Fox fact checkers considered the promotion of election deniers as ‘dangerous’ and ‘mind blowing nuts’ … hoodwinked outright fools … *ucker Carlson was the fountainhead…stoking ‘white hatred’ … maintaining a toxic workplace … Johnson and Thick Lizzie ludicrously turned up for the dinner at Hillsborough Castle … even he must have felt the coldness of the cold shoulders turning as they saw him loom … qualities of bad leaders ‘bitterness, jealousy and paranoia … the damage Brexit has done to the Good Friday Agreement … change of government in London cannot come a day too soon …

Little Brexit Britain

Britain has been diminished by Brexit …People in France remain baffled why a once powerful partner in the European project has been stricken low by an act of elective impoverishment … Claims that Rejoiners are lying about the true cost of leaving the EU are more absurd than ever … Lord Adonis said in 2016 that the vote caused a nervous breakdown in Whitehall … it is a jump to suggest that this proves the existence of a dastardly plot …. Remainer propagandists like nothing better than to use ‘official figures’ to suggest things are not working …

In Tombsland if figures do not show that Brexit is a triumph they must be the work of a dark conspiracy that supposedly pro Brexit ministers have been deplorably slow to disavow ‘misleading’ statistics … attacks on what he calls ‘dodgy figures’ … make no sense at all … The UK would see income losses of about £57B annually … in fact we are losing £40B annually so the cost of leaving is four to five times higher than the cost of membership and that is only if you count the cost of leaving the single market; just one small part of the EU … Swathes of the UK political and columnist class have lost their sanity over the visit by Biden to UK and Ireland … UK’s strange neediness towards America … “

Brexit cannibalism
Posted in Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Keir Starmer, Labour, Liz Truss, Sovereignty, Sunak | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a reply
Brexit NHS Farage

The NHS and Brexit

Updated on date by author


From a friend … This tells the story of the reality of Tory Brexit cuts in graphic detail …

Hi everyone, just want to explain to you all why I have been quiet since before Christmas.
Also to those of you that may be a bit cynical that the A&E is not in as bad a crisis as it seems.
I can tell you the images that are shown on TV are the easy on the eye images.
This is my experience please read to the end …
Before Christmas I had the flu virus. I made two attempts to get a doctor’s appointment. Both failed and I ended up needing antibiotics for what took place subsequently.
On Christmas Day I was in so much pain was taken to Medway hospital by ambulance had intravenous antibiotics sent home to come back Wednesday
On Wednesday attended SDEC (Same Day Emergency Care) after X-rays and bloods I was told I had severe pneumonia and pleurisy with infected fluid around my lung.
As no bed available I was sat in a recliner chair in SDEC treatment room 1.
There I stayed for 5 days.
There were 14 patients waiting for beds in an area that is not set up for long term patients hence SDEC.
in the day the general public and A&E patients were coming in for treatment next to us.
I was having constant iv painkillers antibiotics saline oxygen and nebuliser with all this going on around me.
As not a ward there were no washing facilities we had to use a public toilet which was often filthy NHS is short of cleaners.
I was left sitting in my own urine and diarrhoea as was too weak to walk out to the toilet. I vomited all down myself but no nurse was available to help me . The other patients were trying to help each other.
I honestly thought I would die in there.
The nurses were writing notes on paper towels as they had no paper.
Took 3 days to get a pillow and blanket.
I do not blame the nurses and other staff at all. They are so over worked and kept apologising for the situation. They are not equipped in that area for long term patients.
They had to search for breakfast and meals for us.
On the 6th day I was moved to a ward normally I hate going in to a ward but when I got there it felt as if I had stepped in to heaven it was clean, calm and quiet and when the nurse said would I like a wash (I had not had a wash for 6 days and had sores on my bottom).
I broke down sobbing. I had been so traumatised by what I experienced the nurse sat and held my hand to calm me.
I was in that ward for 2 days it felt like heaven.
I am now home with a 6 week recovery.
I do not blame the staff at the hospital.
I blame the Government.
“To get Brexit done“ they promised.
“To put £350 million EVERY WEEK into The NHS”.
“To build 40 new hospitals”.
“To fund and train 50,000 nurses”.
40, 000 have left the profession.
They have not delivered any of the above.
Our NHS is broken, A&E is in crisis and we need another A&E hospital towards Swale to cope with the amount of houses being built in Kent.
I am totally traumatised by what I experienced. No one should go to hospital and have to go through that.
Fuck The Tories.
This is their doing. They need to make it good.

Check our work out by clicking the image

Posted in Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Europe, Labour, Liz Truss, NHS | Leave a reply
Reboot Britain

The last angry Brexiteers

Updated on date by author


Michael and Alan are angry about Brexit. So they have decided to turn their fire on me in their own version of the ‘Daily Mail v Prince Harry’ moment. I had published a post about my books on Rebooting Britain in response to a facebook post by Led By Donkeys. Alan immediately tries to ‘look for a motive for my crime’ and assumes incorrectly that writing books on Brexit is a money spinner. That’s the only reason he can come up with, based on zero knowledge of how publishing works:



Later on, Alan runs away when asked about the benefits of Brexit. Again this is typical in an online exchange and is one of the reasons why I don’t bother with online Brexorcisms, except when I need some entertainment.

End of communication
Get copies of the books by clicking the page above


Michael is made of stronger stuff. He wants free copies of my books, but he is not a reviewer, a media person or anyone with reach and influence. He finds it hard to understand why I refuse to give 6 months of work away for free to someone with no track record or profile. This trait is not just reserved for Brexiteers. I know plenty of Remainers that refuse to learn the skills needed to change the game. On the one hand they are happy to buy badges and tat and pay Andrew Adonis et al for their writing, they are affronted when I ask that they value my efforts. Oh well. So much for not being an elitist. No wonder we lost three times.

Michael pleads for the book whilst simultaneously pointing out that he already knows what’s in it. Some of our chat on facebook is out of chronological order in what follows below, but I think you will get the gist of Michael’s beef.

It was emotional Michael. Learn the skills of Brexorcism here.

Posted in Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Europe, Labour, Liz Truss | Leave a reply
Brexorcism

Rescue me

Updated on date by author

It is time for Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and their parties to acknowledge that Brexit has destroyed Britain’s resilience and offer a grown up analysis of what needs to be done to save the country from itself. David Lammy managed to dodge the bullet this am on the BBC. Brexit Remains the elephant in the room. It’s time to grow up as Jackie Brook points out elegantly.




Regards The Truss, Liz must now listen to moderate Conservatives inside and outside her party. The underlying problem is Brexit, which has destroyed Britain’s ability to absorb shocks. She must make amends to save Britain and her party. It may be too late of course. The appointment of Jeremy Hunt is a nudge strategy in this general direction. Yes, I know that some of you will have another word for Jeremy, but set against the swivel eyed ERG loons, it is an interesting strategy at this time. She faces a radical decision or oblivion and we know that she is (a) a Janusian thinker and (b) willing to be unpopular. Remainers remain (sic) stuck in the hedonic response cycle of only ever seeing one way out of this problem when binary politics delivered Brexit:

I am as tough on the thinking of Remainers as I am Brexiteers … 🙂 🙁


A general election is unlikely unless forced in some way. It is yet another Remainer unicorn of low probability. Hope is not a strategy.

Forget “Britannia Unchained”, see our work on a better Britain in a better Europe for a better World.

Posted in Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Europe, Labour, Liz Truss | Leave a reply
Truss Fridge

Reflections from a sea dog

Posted on date by author

Don Adamson writes from Yorkshire on the latest mayhem which contributes to our Britastrophe.

This week’s quotes: “Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is ailing and listless, a casualty of Johnson’s lack of seriousness …   Few doubt the new chancellor’s intellect but he swings between genius and idiocy …  an attention span of four seconds … The Chancellor rattles the Treasury … the Treasury needs good advice more than ever … may not be enough to avoid a downturn … None of this bodes well for the public finances. Yet the government is expected to announce tax cuts … Having got their woman into Downing St dodgy financiers can look forward to … deregulate their businesses yet further … Kwarteng should be able to get his ideas through with less sense checking from experienced officials…. However resounding the next crash the sound for friends of Kwasi wil be ‘kerching’ … Department of Health and Social Care is proving shy about efforts to claw back billions of pounds from underperforming suppliers … progress on suspect suppliers is close to bugger all …Priti Patel put former Australian Foreign Secretary (who helped create Australia’s harsh anti-refugee system) in charge of ‘independent review’ of her Rwanda scheme  … leaked files showed guards hitting children or demanding sex from female inmates in grim camps in Papua New Guinea … If Downer could not detect abuse in Australia’s infamous offshore camps it seems unlikely he will spot it in Rwanda … Chris Philp, new appointment as Chief Secretary to the Treasury … why pay any tax at all when they can simply fold their companies when owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to Revenue and Customs … It was refreshing to hear a Labour Politician unapologetic about opposing Brexit, clear about the palpable damage was doing …  Sept ans plus tard qui peut pretendre que le Royaume-Uni a beneficie du Brexit (Translation – after seven years who can pretend that the UK benefits from Brexit) … the answer is next to nobody. The tragedy is that the few who do pretend are sitting round the cabinet table, living in la la land imagining that Brexiters who ‘knew what they were voting for’ knew that it was bankers getting bigger bonuses … many of Thick Lizzie and Kwarteng’s plans are detailed in an economically illiterate pamphlet they published ten years ago … Britannia Unchained … unremarkable, badly researched, cherry picked data using taxi drivers’ anecdotes as ‘evidence.’ … evidence is thin … lifting the ban on bankers’ bonuses … even Johnson retreated on this idea … the authors without a science or maths degree between them or any sense of irony … one of the most illiterate parts of the prospectus is the notion that we will all have to work harder … in fact British workers put in longer hours but productivity remains low … the obvious change  is more training, investment and better management … if you don’t believe ‘Britannia Unchanged’ the pamphlet has the evidence to convince you  … the opinions of taxi drivers … the authors are terrible at maths, economically illiterate, ignorant of science and engineering and completely unaware of how to research a book or write well … smug, selfish, self satisfied, lacking in empathy, ignorant of facts and believing in their own fantasy economics …unfortunately they are now running the country …

Pip Pip            

Don Adamson, Medway Delta (Retired), Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class 

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Cheese, Europe, Labour, Leadership, Liz Truss, Northern Ireland, Politics, Sovereignty, Ukraine | Leave a reply
Kettling Johnson

Boris Johnson’s legacy

Updated on date by author

I don’t really think that Boris Johnson deserves more than one minute to reflect upon his legacy so I made several videos in less than one minute on this subject. In fact James O’Brien summed up the detail so well that I don’t feel i could better that. In summary we are talking about:

Broken promises on Brexit (It is NOT “DONE”, it will consume a lifetime of wasted time and money to continue the pretence). To read the full history, read Private Eyelines – Have I Got Fake Brexit News for EU and Reboot Britain – Strategies and skills to change minds on Europe and Brexit. Remainers and Rejoiners seriously need to up their skills if we are to win the next battle with the populists. Never forget that we lost two elections and a referendum, however inconvenient that fact is. Yesterday I delivered copies of these books to Sir Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and James O’Brien. I wish to send them to Hugh Grant next if anyone can help with this.

On Brexit, COVID and lies

Outright LIES on COVID (Johnson was late to the party when others were listening to experts. He conducted an experiment with genocide by placing infected NHS patients into care homes, causing 10’s of 1000’s of unnecessary deaths). The list goes on. These were political CHOICES and not inevitable. Johnson has been lying ever since he was born. Why would we expect any different from him?

On COVID, care homes and unnecessary deaths

On Brexit, Kettles and gold wallpaper

Industrial levels of distraction or dead cat politics, the latest one being the “kettle”. Even the kettle story is not correct. If you want your kettle to boil faster, descaling and using the correct amount of water will make bigger impacts on your bill. £20 is of course not even significant when compared with the actual energy price rises, but Johnson assumes that people cannot add up.

I don’t believe the Tories will call an election in order to lose their majority but if they do, we’ll need to do better than sharing memes on fb. The Daily Maul has set another dead cat loose on this subject today. Preparation is better than regret. Learn the skills to persuade people outside your bubble to change their voting behaviour here.

Join us on Monday September 12 at 8 pm on ZOOM to build momentum to remove the Brexit beast from our lives and build a better Britain in a better Europe for a better World.

Support our election fighting fund via Go Fund Me. Read our strategy for this at Brexit Doesn’t Pay.

Posted in Borders, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britastrophe, Corona, Cummings, Education, Europe, Farage, Immigration, Labour, Leadership, Liz Truss, Northern Ireland, Partygate, Politics, Racism, Russia, Sovereignty, Ukraine | 2 Replies

Keir Starmer and Rejoining the EU

Updated on date by author

I had a chance encounter with a Labour Councillor the other day whilst at gay pride in Rochester. We know each other from many years back and I like and respect him as a solid campaigner for Remain within the Labour party. He approached me because he recognised me from behind, as I had my ‘offensive swimming bag’ with me, pictured below.

Brexit-Watchers
Brexit-Watchers

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he raised the issue of Labour’s strategy for Brexit. Here is what he told me:

“In our first term we will join EFTA.

In our second term we will have a referendum to rejoin the EU”.

Here is my analysis of this strategy, based on a much fuller treatment of the issue in my book Reboot Britain : Strategies to change minds on Europe and Brexit.

He claimed that Kier Starmer could not argue about ending Brexit at this time, due to his need to hold on to red wall seats at an election.  I dispute this position:

If Kier Starmer continues with the strategy of ‘making Brexit work’, he will be accused, quite rightly, of being a liar after being elected. This is the very thing that he has accused Boris Johnson and the Conservative party of doing and is therefore morally bankrupt.

Everyone knows that Starmer is a Remainer and therefore there would be no great loss if he were to remind us of this fact.  Boris Johnson reminds Keir Starmer of his EU / Remain credentials on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in parliament, so there is very little currency in the Daily Excess, Son or Maul revealing this ‘secret’.  Opinions about Brexit are changing rapidly, with Lord Sugar the latest person to call for Brexit to be reversed. 

The Labour Party seem to be terrified of the right-wing media, yet they themselves have a media machine.  Therefore, they ought to be able to put up a valid defence of his position if they needed to.  The Labour party somehow believe that their own media machine is inferior to the Tory party’s.  Perhaps Labour need to read my books as well.

My sense is that Keir Starmer is even more scared of the hard left element of his own party than the Conservatives and that this is driving his avoidance of the Brexit issue.  You have gotta love Mick Lynch’s ability to stand up and speak truth to power, but let’s not forget that Lynch is also a relic of the militant tendency from the 1980’s in terms of his wish to shut the borders and return us to Little Britain via Brexit myopia.

Let’s suppose that Starmer decided to ignore the hard left in his party. It is indeed possible that he would lose some votes in red wall seats.  Let’s guess that this may amount to 10% losses of seats in those areas. However he stands to gain anything like 20 to 40% of Conservative seats in other areas. Labour are allowing the militant tendency to dictate their strategy for re-election and this makes them no better than the bluekip Tories. I cannot recommend that any remainers vote for them under these circumstances, except where their candidates have a more enlightened view about Brexit.

My Councillor friend put it to me that Starmer simply cannot say the Brexit word at this time. Respectfully, I say this is horseshit.  He can say that Brexit isn’t working and has not delivered what was on ‘the brochure’ in 2016. He can also point to clear evidence to support such statements at this time, coming from UK in a changing Europe and our own work at Reboot Britain.  The Labour Party has fallen into the trap of believing that a poll in OK Magazine or the results of the latest focus group should dictate party policy. This is not leadership. Silence is assent and Starmer’s position is a clear demonstration of putting party before country, what Tony Blair describes as putting ideology before pragmatism.  I expected better from a clever man and I must conclude that, like the Tories, there are people who they are afraid of behind the scenes.

As regards Labour’s long-term plan, there are many flaws with this:

The EFTA countries are a small club of nations: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who value collaboration over competition. It is unclear as to how such a club would wish to invite an aggressive competitor with a track record for wanting ‘cake and eat it too’ from its relationships with other trading partners. Brexit Britain has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for the role of international law,  breaking deals made with others and riding roughshod over nations that it considers to be inferior to itself. These are hardly the kinds of elements of a compelling psychological contract to join a new trading bloc.  Joining EFTA also means accepting the four freedoms of the EU.  How will this be put to the knuckle dragging red wall Brexiteers?

The assumption of a second term in office is also questionable, particularly if it becomes apparent that Starmer lied to get into power. This makes him equivalent to Johnson and the mainstream media would certainly weaponise this. The second doubtful assumption is that another referendum would be desirable or indeed practical. Brexit has divided the nation and I very much doubt that the nation will look back on 2016 and want to repeat the exercise with all that it has brought. It is entirely possible that, by this time, many people will have forgotten most of what Michael Gove glibly called ‘bumps in the road’ and will not wish to open up the debate again.  The longer we leave this question, the more difficult it becomes, as divergence will be complete and the damage to lives and livelihoods will be complete.

My friend assumed that the binary ping-pong politics model remain resilient into the future. This itself is questionable. Brexit has of course unleashed a disruptive influence on British politics, with a number of parties now standing for anything but the current system. Within the next few years we will see the emergence of Gina Miller’s True and Fair party, the possible resurgence of the Lib Dems in the South, the departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom and the emergence of other single-issue parties such as the Rejoin party. Under such circumstances, I’m doubtful as to whether ping-pong politics will remain the norm. My friend tried to deal with this with me by saying that if I didn’t vote Labour I would get the Tories. My reply was simple. I stated that I cannot vote for a Brexit party and that Labour must do better than this.

I am not sure whether the Labour strategy was given to my labour councillor friend in order to appease him or for him to use to appease me. Although miracles are sometimes possible, the strategy he presented has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese banned by Liz Truss.  He is a very good chap and I wanted to believe him.  But I ended up with the feeling that he himself may well be hanging onto unicorns and trying to ‘believe harder’.

Brexit Books
Brexit Books – Check them out on Etsy
Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britastrophe, Education, Europe, Labour, Leadership, NHS, Politics | Leave a reply