Back to Top

Category: Music

Proms

Last night at the Proms

I was delighted to give my last performance at The Last Night of the Proms last Saturday for the EU Flag Mafia. The organiser of the event had his car broken into after the event and his laptop stolen. I myself had a laptop stolen by Vote Leave after a march a few years back. It is utterly sickening. Sadly the Met Police could not be bothered to investigate, which, of course, is typical. I’m even slightly prepared to believe that it may have been an ‘inside job’, given the Met’s credentials.

Met Police response
The Police response to the crime was typically poor.

To help him recover his losses, I am selling this multi guitar rack and a PA system plus two Peavey speakers. Sensible offers please. I will also be making a donation. If you wish to do so, please e-mail me reboot@brexitrage.com and I will give you his direct details for cheques and direct transfers. The Flag Mafia leader wishes to remain anonymous as he fears media attention which could jeopardise his employment.

Please support this cause. Every year, the Flag Mafia organise this monumental project. I stepped in at short notice after all the classical musicians cancelled at less than 24 hour’s notice, gaining social disapproval from a couple of Prosecco swilling Brexiteers and some of “Steve Bray’s angels” who attempted to stop politically motivated musical protest.

Last Night at the Proms. Click image to hear the music.

Join us in Mid Bedfordshire to support Gina Miller

Read Brexit has failed

Brighton

Brighton Rock

I am speaking at a panel event with the BBC’s Jonty Bloom on September 7th in Brighton from 7 – 9.30 pm with a cast of star people. We will be discussing the impact of Brexit on musicians. Organised by Helen Gibbons, Chair of European Movement Sussex. We will also be making stops with the Bollocks to Brexit Mini Cooper en route at the Millennium Clocktower and Seaford (venue tbc) 2 – 4 pm with our UK Brexorcism Tour. See Facebook for up to date details of the tour schedule.

UNLOCK THE MUSIC
Click to reserve your place.
UNLOCK THE MUAIC
Click to reserve your place.

Unlock the Music

The careers and livelihoods of UK musicians are being damaged by the loss of the right to work across borders in Europe. European Movement Sussex presents Unlock the Music, a panel event focused on the impact of Brexit on the music industry.

Experienced industry professionals and working musicians will each present their evidence and tell of the issues that have damaged the careers and prospects of many of those involved in music in the UK. They will also offer achievable solutions that the UK government should pursue.

Panel members include:

Dave Webster – Head of International at the Musicians’ Union

Will Page – Author, podcaster and former Chief Economist at Spotify

Tom Kiehl – Deputy CEO and Director of Public Affairs at UK Music

Heather Bird – Double bassist and founder of Classical Evolution

Peter Cook – Author of three books on Brexit and six albums of protest songs

Hanna Madalska-Gayer – Head of Policy & Communications, Association of British Orchestras

Jonty Bloom  – Freelance journalist ex BBC and New European contributor (Moderator)

Date: Thursday, 7 September. Time: 7pm – 9.30pm

Venue: Brighton Unitarian Church, New Road, Brighton, BN1 1UG.

Tickets from TicketSource.

This is the first of a series of three Rebuild with Europe events addressing Brexit impacts on specific sectors. Future events will focus on agriculture and education.

Read our article on musicians and Brexit at The Federal Trust.

Musicians and Brexit
Musicians and Brexit.

Subscribe
Subscribe to this platform for occasional updates. Click the image.

Join us in Swindon Wed 30 August

April Brexit Fools

By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s homework: 1930s Japan has been described as a period of ‘Brainless Patriotism’ An out of control government embarked on mad, bad and dangerous policies. This led to a terrible war with tragic consequences for millions of people. In this country we have an out of control government that is full of ‘Brainless Patriotism’ and which carries out mad, bad and dangerous policies. The Labour Party has nothing to say about this except vague assurances about ‘making Brexit work.’ If you are going to steal ideas from other people (Japanese or anybody else) would make sense to steal ideas that are otherwise than mad, bad and dangerous.

Therese Coffey has been dumping infected gammon into supermarkets. In other news, she was seen with a wooden leg … Cannabalism is suspected after Iain Duncan Smith was seen running away from the scene.

This week’s quotes: “What Gary Lineker taught us about taking a stand… The BBC, its board stuffed by Tory culture warriors caved in … Lineker has a history of anti racist statements … Tory decision to wage a culture war has left no middle ground … progressive people were dismayed by Labour’s stand on the ‘Illegal immigration bill’ … ‘it would not work’ rather than its cruelty … beyond awful … unfairness and hypocrisy behind the BBC response … Lineker spoke for all of us … Tories bereft of answers …  Lineker activated a mass of discontent among BBC journalists … who are clearly sick of the Tory appointed managers … Hunt’s budget proves that Brexit is only paying off in a parallel universe … Britain is living in an alternate reality … surreal world where the government lives … the rest of us can see the damage that Brexit is doing … Office of Budget Responsibility … showing how Brexit is wrecking everything, everywhere, all at once … economy is 4% small than if we had stayed in the EU& .. the only opportunities from Brexit are lost opportunities … costing the government a fortune … without Brexit we could have increased NHS and social spending by  from around £184B to about 327B… government is still borrowing lots of money … the largest tax burden ever … hard to get debt on a downward path … disastrous fall in living standards … slashed long term growth and little sign of it improving … good news for the very rich … huge tax breaks for the wealthy …  

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Check out Private Eyelines – Perfect for April Brexit Fools’ Day

Click image to find the book on Amazon

Don’s rant

By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s homework: 1. is there any truth in the rumour that Elon Musk is funding the Labour Party? 2. Whenever the Tories FUBAR (Foul Up Beyond All Repair) the standard excuse they trot out is ‘we got the big calls right.’ What exactly is a ‘Big Call’ in this context and how horribly disastrous must things become before these Tories admit they got it wrong? 

This week’s quotes: “ Brexit has been painful … it will get worse when full import controls are imposed next year … a lack of genuine respect for the complexity all this involves … the more the Tories try to imitate Thatcher the less she is remembered … miserable times … an asylum processing process that has been allowed to collapse … most shocking claim, that Braverman has now repudiated …  an activist blob left wing lawyers, civil servants … blocked us … it is baseless …  classic language of dehumanisation …  what the Nazis did to the German Civil Service … main reasons for dismissal without pension … unbecoming conduct (could involve buying goods in Jewish shops ) … failing to protest against insults to National Socialism … aimed at those who refused to go along with the politicisation of public administration … biggest and most racialised infraction of human rights in Britain since the 1930s … power to deport without regard to British law … puts Braverman way outside the Tory mainstream … pitch for the Tory leadership, becoming the Enoch Powell of our time … repudiation of human rights … raising anger at facts that are not true, grievances that are manufactured … new asylum law will not work … repressive forces do not want fairness or progress … they claim that their populism is motivated  by a belief in free speech…. BBC sees nothing wrong in having a chairman who made huge donations to the Tory Party … helped Johnson secure an £800,000 loan … is there anything this government can do competently? … synthetic rage … Braverman has admitted that her policy contravenes the law … not dissimilar to the language used by 1930s Nazis … language similarities between Der Sturmer and Volkischer Beobachter in 1930s Germany and the Mail, Express in recent decades … Richy Scumbag is not as incontinentally dishonest as Johsnon or as utterly useless as Thick Lizzie … such a low bar … hrdly worthy of comparison  … Brexit is undermining the judiciary … making it hard for the young and poor to vote … easier for the Tories to break election law … reward their friends … TV and radio pander to rather than challenge their vile agenda … Johnson asked for show of hands on who thought Brexit was a good idea. Two hands were raised. One was his own … Johnson sees rules as for others to follow … trimmed down his list of honours from three figures to two … Richy Scumbag should cross them all out … failure to do so will leave him as tainted as Johnson … Murdoch may have a soft spot for Johnson but he recognises that Johnson will never again be PM, unlike Rothermere lackeys … Britain’s manufacturers have turned their backs on the government … attacks on the government open and strongly worded … political mismanagement of the economy cannot continue … no government strategy at all … the idea that ideology can trump common sense is grim news to the industry … EU businesses are not interested … the government has given up pretending to care … German Nationalists … the parallels between the language adopted by the New Tory Party and the Nazis are obvious … poisonous cocktail of ideologically driven nationalism and gradual erosion of our rights  … the difference between right and ‘the Right’ has never been clearer … Tory Party is being relentlessly dragged to the extreme right …  moderate Tories have gone, never to return … any pretence at decency from Richy Scumbag is gone … what were May, Johnson and Thick Lizzie doing apart from dreaming up slogans to distract our attention from the disastrous effects of Brexit … the government ordering the BBC to purge itself of dissenting voices was not the best way to refute the suggestion that it is fascist … 1823 Foundation of the Anti Slavery Society which led to abolition of slavery in the British Empire. 2023 Removal by Sue Ellen Braverman of legal protection from modern slavery in the UK … putting major bankers into the hands of a bank with the world’s worst reputation for money laundering is not without risk … recent events have not dulled the taste of MPs for largess from Russian Mafia … cosy relationship between Clipper Logistics and the Tory Party continues … no bid contract to distribute PPE for the NHS receiving at least £112M…   “Arise Sir Wife Beater … Stanley Johnson’s former wife said ‘He was always hitting me …. Boris saw it … many times over many years … ‘ s well as the broken nose that landed her in hospital Wall suffered a nervous breakdown … just the sort of thing that deserves an order of chivalry … HM Revenue and Customs ‘too slow to tackle fraud and error … recovery of the billions paid out …. woeful … many in Whitehall refused to follow their own restrictions, lied about them and covered them up … Downing St broke the lockdown rules, taken the public for fools and lied … News UK received emails from management accusing them of misdemeanours … ‘f***ing outrageous’ … Fox News commentators helped to propagate the most damaging conspiracy theory in post war democracy … damning evidence from Murdoch and other Fox executives predicted to result in $1.6B …Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has become toxic in his own constituency … Tories considering deselecting him … local businesses shunning him … GB News … bonkers rightwing ideologues … Jacob Rees Mogg … half witted persona … observers call him a ‘complete c**t’ … Nigel Garbage makes  happier viewing for Remainers than Leavers … seriously off his muttons … he considers Moggy to be dangerously leftie … GB News ratings are bad but Murdoch’s TalkTV are worse … criticising the Far Right from the perspective of the Really Far Right … GB News lot £30M in first year …  GB News output increasing Batsh*t  crazy… £29B has been lost through Brexit … not convinced the UK Infrastructure Bank has a strategic view … limited delivery … A right wing coalition that would undermine the rule of law and undermine … and weaken democracy … country is in turmoil … fiery rhetoric from right wingers … bad solutions to real problems … woeful remedy … far right fringe has grown, fuelled by demagogic politics … inequality … a country that is betraying its liberal roots … this government relies on extremists … reckless words have consequences …, Jeremy Hunt’s budget is better at diagnosis than treatment … the bar for a successful budget was dramatically lowered last year … underlying problems persist … a bizarrely blunt way to do it … a bad decision that will raise carbon emissions … a dreadful fudge … Britain desperately needs a stable tax regime … a hostage to fortune … by 2024 real living standards will have fallen by the greatest amount over a two year period since records began .. Dismal record on productivity … not yet tackled Britain’s biggest headaches … populist politics another stumbling block … fixation with cultural controversy is another distraction from real needs … nor did the budget provide much for Britain’s struggling public services, particularly the health care system … Britain takes a fresh look at foreign and defence policies … a Europe shaped hole … Johnson’s tilt to the Indo Pacific region was a boosterish folly, not least after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine … the risk of escalation is greater than at any time in decades … the biggest question is if Britain has the resources to realise the vision … the government has left this tricky dilemma to successors …  Tories should forget about the small boats and stop the dodgy car washes and sweet shops … car washes … archetypal example of black market economy … Tories have made it easy to run law breaking industries … law breaking is endemic … Ministers know all this … these businesses are profitable because they do not adhere to the law … illegal conditions … withheld wages … fire doors being locked shut … enforcement of basic rights is weak … clear and obvious scams in London … skipped business rates to the tune of £9m … weak and slack enforcement allows scammers to thrive … plenty that the government could do to crack down … no guarantee … resources to crack down on black market … a government serious about dealing with the root causes of illegal immigration, not just looking tough, has plenty of options available …”

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Check our post on Political Censorship out here

Failing fast

By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s homework: 1. Governments sometimes have to make tough decisions about controversial questions. There is a right way and a wrong way to do that. This government always chooses a wrong and stupid way to make tough decisions.

This week’s homework: 2. Brexit has failed and has been seen to fail. Every day produces more evidence that Brexit can only be a fiasco. Tories respond by sulking and blaming everybody but themselves. Labour Party responds by insisting that everything will be hunky dory so long as we pretend that Brexit is working (despite all the evidence to the contrary).There is no question of either Labour or Tories shifting their backsides and doing something to reverse the biggest act of stupidity any British government has perpetrated for many years. Which party is showing the greatest degree of hypocrisy and moral cowardice: Labour or Tories? 

This week’s quotes: “English Chamber orchestra had to cancel a US tour … visa problems … King’s Singers … concert Pensacola College cancelled … one of the singers is gay … (COMMENTS:  This does not sit well with Johnson forever talking about ‘new opportunities outside Europe’) … earthquakes in Turkey … Erdogan stripped the ‘experts’ out of state institutions … including the disaster response agency (COMMENT: 21st century Tories have interesting things to say about experts. Perhaps it is just as well that UK is not in an earthquake prone area)… Britain’s creeping corruption … best assessment is Transparency International’s  index … Britain is sliding to its worst ever score … Richy Scumbag is another in a growing list of Tory Prime Minister’s undone by Brexit … British companies do not train their staff … a lack of skills is making almost a quarter of all vacancies hard to fill … Covid 19 and Brexit have made that worse … government has completely ignored this puzzle … at a Facebook content moderation centre in Kenya run by Sama, an outsourcing firm … workers told Time magazine they were mistreated by both companies … accusing them of union busting, forced labour and human trafficking … Royal Mail is failing its duty to deliver letters on Saturday … Food chain may collapse when Brexit checks come in later this year  … underlying problems caused by Brexit … to understand the problem you have to understand that this is a sector significantly disrupted by Brexit … UK market is not attractive … Brexit is adding to the chaos … despite what the ‘nothing to do with Brexit’ Brigade might believe … food logistics industry is less resilient .. a warning of what lies ahead …  problems like this will be worse in future … sub standard meat is entering the country … could lead to African Swine Fever or another highly contagious and devastating disease … huge problem … small sign of what lies ahead … you ain’t seen nothing yet … government has had seven years to come up with a solution … and has failed … if ‘take back control was the lie that unleashed Brexit might ‘let them eat turnip be Brexit’s epitath? … We are on our fifth Brexit PM … ‘nothing to do with Brexit’ supply chains … Thick Lizzie believes it but her judgement is catastrophic …  the environment secretary could not have looked more bored, disengaged, could not give a toss about farmer’s problems … Johnson said ‘F*** business’ … Coffey said F*** Farmers’ … the never ending civil war in the Tory Party … dire figures about NHS …  Lasers are precise, powerful and efficient … when James Cleverly said ‘we remain laser focussed on finding a solution … the reaction in Brussels was bemusement mixed with scepticism … the closer Richy Scumbag gets to a deal the  more the lunatic fringes of his party seem determined to stop him … there is no way to divide and conquer the EU … they have stuck together for years … the involvement of Johnson is seen as hugely damaging in Brussels … last year alone  Therese Coffey chomped her way through £4,442 of hospitality … Johnson’s memoirs will cause a massive problem for booksellers and librarians … should they be classified as fiction or fantasy … Brexit ideas … hopelessly flawed, poorly conceived or just plain suicidally stupid …. Britain stock market has languished. Gilts may be next … disastrous budget by Toilet Kwarteng … long running exodus from London … shrivel compared to the rest of the world … Big firms are ditching their British listings … Britain’s stock market … on a downward path … make matters worse … buyers of sovereign debt departing … British assets no longer seem like a must have for global investors … totemic blow to the City of London … Richy Scumbag’s deal softens the Irish Sea border but not as much as he claims … London does not seem to grasp … Johnson still dreams of returning to Westminster … idiotic rows … Johnson’s deal was disastrous … the case for long term despair is compelling … public services are exhausted … day long waits in A & E … some crimes have, in effect, been legalised … slow growth, rubbish public services and falling incomes will probably doom the Tories at the next election … After 7 years of Brexit EU has emerged as the clear winner … Tories heading for a thumping defeat at the polls … thanks to Brexit … Vote Leave claimed to have all the cards … nobody ever worked out what the British really wanted … fuzzy notions … not even the maddest populist on the continent thinks leaving the EU is a good idea … dire governance … a bad official always says yes to the ruler …  goes along with him even when he is wrong … Journalists will soon be replaced by artificial intelligence. The Turing Test of the near future may be a machine’s ability to convince a Daily Mail reader that the latest polemic by a flesh and blood employee and not by a machine designed to generate rabid headlines to stir up xenophobes … If the Tories are crushed they will be replaced by something even worse … Richy Scumbag’s sudden conversion to competence … if we are lucky that may go down as the first moves in a Tory campaign to avoid electoral oblivion … whenever I enter a TV studio for a political … there is nearly always somebody from the far right. Their shtick is always to avoid logic and evidence … Caution prevents Labour from telling the truth about Brexit … there is no shortage of Leave voters who now think Brexit was a mistake … A majority of Labour voters backed Remain and a sizeable share of Brexiters now think Brexit was a mistake … (Johnson) Lying Putrescence …Brexit continues to wreck the lives of Britain’s small farmers … Liz Webster (a small farmer) always knew Brexit would be a disaster … she underestimated how quickly that disaster would overtake the industry … It is actually worse than we predicted … everyone is suffering … some of the countries from which we import agricultural goods have much lower standards … prospect is terrifying for the food industry … always contradictions in Brexit promises … to hide that reality … Farmers thought they would get more money while the government planned to shrink the industry … industry is bracing itself for the pain to come … Government refuses to demand that imports comply with UK food standards … this could hardly have come at a worse time … farmers were promised the world and have been sadly disappointed … the agricultural industry is a sacrificial lamb for Brexit … Richy Scumbag has all but given up pretending to be a presence on the world stage; still less believing ‘Global Britain’ was anything more than an empty slogan … he is reluctant to go anywhere … partly because he is worried about what plots against him might be hatched in his absence and an awareness of what other world leaders think about him and Brexit … Johnson Fanzine the Daily Mail was having problems finding Tory MPs to say on the record that he could come back as PM. The style of the paper is to quote unidentified ‘friends.’… Johnson’s ‘friends’ would have more authority if they talked like real people … ‘Partygate is a political show trial with an outrageous level of bias that would make Stalin blush’ … absurd tabloidese … Mandrake challenges the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to quote real people willing to talk on the record … long suffering readers of the Times and Sunday Times reacted with dismay to the papers’ ‘exclusive’ serialisation of Paris Hilton’s memoirs …’ has the times become The Sun?’ … ‘I thought my subscription was to the Times and not some grubby tabloid’ … Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News UK, forced the book on the editors of both titles … (Conspiracy theories) we have seen a combination of people who have deliberately manipulated the situation and misrepresented the facts … conspiracy theories are impossible to knock down. Any presentation of the facts is dismissed as part of the plot … Conspiracy theorists hold 16 random beliefs and eight contradict the other eight … the only thing that holds them together is resentment and distrust … symptoms of Brexgret … many layers of denial, bluster and jingoistic claptrap … spiteful, empty pride … you let a bunch of hucksters, gangsters and race baiting demagogues hoodwink you into destroying your livelihood and your grandchildren’s future … justify the unjustifiable and repeatedly deny the evidence … Britain has endured a decade of early deaths … pandemic is not the only reason … something went wrong in the early 20102 (COMMENT: About the time we started getting corrupt and incompetent Tory governments) … between 2012 and 2022 approximately 700,000 Brits died sooner than they might have … death rates for  30 to 49 year old steadily increased in Britain since 2012 in sharp contrast to with neighbouring countries … life expectancy has fallen for the poorest and increased for the wealthy … Britain has done worst out of its European peers … hospital wait lists of record lengths … crisis in primary care … poorer Brits are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a later stage … it will be tricky to find enough radiologists and GPs to make a difference … life expectancy worst affected in places with the largest decline in housing services and social care spending … cannot obscure the fact that something has gone badly wrong in the last decade …no European country has stalled as much as Britain … funding cuts are likely to have worsened health outcomes … 40% of the burden on the NHS may be preventable … services have been pruned in the last decade … 10m years of life have been in lost in Britain over the last decade  compared with what might have been expected in 2011. The grim total keeps ticking up …  Russia’s war on the Ukraine has vindicated Macron’s call for a stronger EU … A new plan to stop migrants in boats is unlikely to work … impractical, morally and legally dubious … a myriad practical flaws … echo an earlier failure to tackle the problem … lawyers say plan has made no actual difference … though it may temporarily please the right of the Tory party … the plan is the wrong way round … new law will not stop the boats … Tory intellectuals (sic) declared that culture had vanquished economics … ‘It is not the economy, stupid’ ran one headline … What is going on out there is brutal … miserable politics … economic competence is decisive in general elections … Tory right wingers who call themselves Thatcherites have treated distribution networks much as a toddler with a hammer treats a wristwatch. 

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Check our post on Political Censorship out here

Turd Reich

By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s quotes: “A mess of Johnson’s making … Johnson is wading in making things worse …  outrageous even by Johnson’s standards … a new low for an ex PM who has long since left the moral gutter behind … I hope Richy Scumbag goes down to a crushing defeat but I also hope he fixes the NI Protocol problem … oven ready meal that turned out to be half baked … it is hardly in China’s interests to see a strong Russia … The more Russia weakens the more vulnerable Siberia looks. Chinese encroachment is a future headache waiting to happen … Gove is now being ‘honest’ about the failure of Brexit … if he were really honest he would apologise and shut up… Johnson crashes his way through democracy like a poltergeist who has not noticed his own demise.

Nigel Garbage hosts a TV show on a channel nobody watches … (Richy Scumbag) it is almost charming how the son of Punjabi immigrants still thinks he can become the darling of bigots … Johnson is buying a house … we wait to hear with whose money … the plan seems to be that whatever is left of the Tory Party after the next election will flock to his bloodstained banner …

Turd Reich

George Takei finds British politics illogical …  Brexit was a disastrous mistake … every bit as bad as those who opposed it predicted … and getting worse … Nigel Garbage … a deluded and dangerous man … politicians lack imagination and have had very privileged lives … cannot understand what other people’s lives are like … Trump is a good example … worst President we ever had …  Takei feels despair at the lies told by politicians … He has raged magnificently against Brexit … Only Boris Johnson could make Thick Lizzie look competent … Thick Lizzie’s brief, miserable innings … 

The UK has a long term productivity problem. Since 2008 it has been running at less than a quarter of its usual rate. … the government has no idea how to improve things … the government seems to be deliberately making things worse instead of better … what the economy needs is a well functioning government, massive levels of investment, better training and far better management … investment has flat lined since Brexit … the government has slashed so many jobs that the accountancy profession complains the HM Revenue and Customs is so inefficient and understaffed that it is stifling the creating of companies;, jobs and wealth … we have had a tax dodging chancellor, a PM whose wife was a non-dom, billions of Covid loans that mysteriously disappeared, billions wasted on crony contracts for PPE … we have had Boris Johnson who could out bunga Sylvio Berlusconi … and we have had Thick Lizzie who makes corruption and incompetence look like a model of fiscal responsibility … the collapse of inward investment is extremely damaging, Britain is seen as too risky to invest in … stupidity over the Northern Ireland protocol … wasted resources, an economy that overheats easily …

UK is losing the race to be a leader in new technology .. Failing to ride the hi-tech wave of growth potential… If things were not bad enough for UK musicians in the EU they get worse by the minute in the USA … “

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Check our post on Political Censorship out here

Brexit is not a complete disaster, it is an incomplete disaster

From Don Adamson in Yorkshire. Brexorcist First Class, campaigner, writer and impressario:

This week’s quotes: “ Brexit re-enactment society: historical re-enactments are popular in Britain … fans of the genre should go the House of Lords … scrutinising the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) bill … lawmakers know the bill is dangerous, wasteful and one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever to come before Parliament … Parliament is again galloping towards an avoidable blunder … it is like lighting a fire in a library and handing the librarians a photocopier and a marker pen to save what they can … ministers do not know how many laws are in scope … hands the executive broad powers to make laws with no idea as to how the power might be used …

Treasury fears it could lose billions in tax challenges … an almighty time sink … for the vanity of those for whom the battle to leave the EU was the highlight of their careers … parliament is imprisoned by the shrill politics of Brexit … some of the most damaging features of the Brexit process … a sane country would never allow itself to be put in this vice … familiar mix of terror and irresponsibility … blithe optimism smothers debate …

Labour is wary of opposing Brexit … terrible mistake …  a clear majority of Brits believe that to Leave the EU was a mistake … Brexit causes politicians to lose their judgement …  The Old Bailey focuses mainly on murder, rape and terrorism cases … the majority of terrorism cases involved people on the far right of British politics. A minority involves Islamic terrorist cases …

Thick Lizzie addressed a reception at the Japanese Embassy … the feet shuffling mood hovered between embarrassment and cringe coated pain … Thick Lizzie assumes publishers would flock to offer her big bucks for her memoirs … interest varied between minimal and zero … must be hurtful … Johnson is clocking up millions for his memoirs and after dinner speeches … while persuading Richy Scumbag to fund lawyers to help Johnson pretend that he did not lie to Parliament over Partygate …

Brexit is choking the arts and the government is doing nothing about it … touring orchestras and music sales – British culture and arts are a huge success story … Brexit means struggling with tough opposition from abroad … rivals get better tax breaks … children’s TV is suffering … movies of all kinds, music, live theatre, dance, audio books and video games … the world loves British cultural exports but Brexit makes it far harder to sell them … games firms give £7B a year to the economy … music exports are worth £3.5B … creative industries contribute £116B to the economy … yet is one of the worst hit by Brexit … government is totally indifferent … British government promised to make up any shortfall but has not done so … huge problem for the industry … harder and more expensive … a ruinously expensive waste of time … hurt an industry where Britain has huge advantages … You have to be something of a strange breed to want to be an MP in the first place …

Daily Telegraph runs pieces overtly critical of Brexit and Johnson …  Johnson can only count on Daily Mail and Sunday Mail for blind loyalty … Michael Gove admitted ‘I ask myself if Brexit was the right thing to do ‘ … Gove’s loyalty lasts only so long as it suits his interests … wants to distance himself from the Brexit recriminations after the next election … frankly hilarious death spiral the governments poll numbers have been taking for months …

Thick Lizzie continues to peddle her ‘it was all the fault of communist currency traders’ … ‘le grande illusion’ encapsulates Brexit … Johnson’s audacity … ‘that is what Louis XVI did and he got the guillotine …  Redevelopment at Teesside Freeport is Europe’s largest and most risky Brownfield project… highly toxic land and riverbed is churned up at breakneck speed …

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey has little interest in protecting the environment … toxic waste is taken from remediated areas and piles driven into contaminated land … ‘business partners’ make tens of millions … Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy … it was in the days of Nigel Lawson and Peter Walker that this vital industry last enjoyed civil servants with genuine energy expertise … the timing of these disruptions could not be worse … a new defence export advocate to promote arms sales … given the job to a Tory peer … under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office  … there are more health professionals of Ghanaian origin working for the NHS than in Ghana … Brexit is not a complete disaster, it is an incomplete disaster … Brexit does not need fixing stormed Lord Frost to the Daily Mail …

Brexit is not a complete disaster, it is an incomplete disaster

Hierarchy of needs

Just 20 days into Brexit and it seems that nearly every industry and sector of society are either asking for a hand out or a hand up after Brexit. Some of you will be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Here’s the Brexit hierarchy of needs:

The Dark Side of the Loon

Join us MON 8pm GMT on ZOOM

On the run

Working up from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, it has become apparent that our so-called free trade deal is not free, nor frictionless. We can already see low-level shortages of fresh food on supermarket shelves. Tony Hale, managing director of London-based DH Foods, said he had five containers of fresh pork sitting at Rotterdam port that was now “completely rotten”. Another mentioned £500 000 worth of meat rotting after being delayed by our ‘frictionless trade’. Fishermen protested in Downing Street on Monday and the Government tried to buy them off by offering £23 million in compensation for losses. Let’s do the math:

£23 million = £19 166 for each fisherman

Our attempts to secure a Brexit deal for the fishermen have cost £7 BILLION. That’s 304 times more than the sum of money being offered !!

£19 K sounds a lot, but of course it’s barely enough to live on for a year, in return for the fishermen’s silence. A fisherman’s friend once said that “a cod in the hand is worth two in the net”, but this is plainly a fobbing-off strategy. Cod only knows what we’d do without EU …

Controversial thought. Should people who largely voted for Brexit be rewarded for that decision? Arguably not.

These effects are DIRECTLY related to Brexit

The bribe for the fisherman sets an important precedent. If you feel you have been adversely affected by Brexit, simply write to Boris and ask for a ‘bung’.

Breathe

Parliament voted down an amendment to the Brexit Trade Bill which sought to ensure the NHS is excluded from future trade deals. This means that The NHS is once again up for sale on the international markets, breaking yet another Conservative manifesto promise. Expect American styled healthcare charges in the future and the eventual end of our NHS, currently free at the point of delivery. Oh, yes, and the £350 million per week has still not materialised …

Boris Johnson narrowly avoided defeat on a bill to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on trade deals with regimes which commit genocide. One can soon expect Liz Truss to come back from North Korea signing deals for missiles in exchange for cheese.

Breathe in the air
Breathe – support our work by clicking on the mask

Read our satirical spoofs of The Sun, Mail, Express at Private Eyelines

Brain Damage

Maslow did not deal with money in his hierarchy of needs, as it was what fellow traveller Frederick Herzberg termed a ‘dissatisfier’. Simply stated, doubling your salary does not double your motivation, but an inadequate wage is a massive source of dissatisfaction.

Losing your livelihood can also lead to mental health issues, aka what Pink Floyd referred to as ‘brain damage’ on ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. We are currently in the midst of experiencing what could be described as ‘collective PTSD’ in the UK, as lives and livelihoods are destroyed by COVID. Whilst it makes total sense to close down non-essential activities, such as hairdressers, nail bars etc. and to restrict social participation in sports and hospitality, the impacts on mental health are considerable.

Whilst Brexit is not a direct causal factor of these COVID-related closures. Brexit has contributed to our lack of resilience in the UK and therefore our sense of dystopia about the future. Going forward, Brexit will do much more damage to our sense of belonging and place in the world, with impacts on lives and livelihoods. We can only express our sorrow to those people whose lives depend on the resumption of their businesses. All we can do is to point out that the measures taken by Boris Johnson have been too little, too late. This has resulted in repeated lockdowns and restrictions and extended the pain from COVID. Adding Brexit to COVID results in a ‘Britastrophe’.

A stitch in time saves nine – click on the image to save democracy

Learn valuable skills at HOW TO

The Great Gig in the Sky

I am part musician, part scientist, part business academic, so it pains me to say this, but if we had to choose between eating and music, the rational choice would be to eat. Yet our Brexit Government has voted for neither. With shops now emptying of fruit, veg, meat and fish, one could have taken consolation in music. Yet it emerges that Boris Johnson rejected a special deal for musicians working in Europe as part of the Brexit trade deal. I wrote on the issue of musicians working in Europe many years ago, in Voices for Europe and recently the world’s most famous musicians have protested against this criminal assault on the arts by our Government.

Won't get fooled again (by Brexit)
Won’t get fooled again (by Brexit) … We’ll be fighting on the streets – click on Roger Daltrey to help Re-Boot Britain – Graphic by Cold War Steve www.coldwarsteve.com

UK culture secretary Oliver Dowden urged musicians to use their ‘star power’ to lobby the EU to ease new visa and work permit rules. Dowden revealed his pathetic idiocy and ignorance in suggesting that musicians should be able to break international trade agreements. In doing so, he made himself and his Government look especially stupid. The fault rests with third-rate  negotiator Frost, who, instead of looking after the interests of musicians and others, wasted months of negotiations parroting the words that Britain is a sovereign country.

Money

Anthony Grayling reports on further gradual shifts to move our financial services out of Britain.

HMRC are also charging truckers for delays that THEY are causing in terms of customs checks. This will not go well. There have been several reports on extensive delays for lorry drivers. In case you are confused about why this is happening, this helpful diagram explains all:

Alone again, naturally – our place as a 3rd Country

Join our team at About US

Time

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

The Government has ended the restrictions on the 48-hour working week, although employers have not complained of feeling unduly shackled by EU standards and the majority of workers working more than 48 hours a week willingly opted out with better pay conditions. This opens the door to the exploitation of poorly paid workers. This breaks the government’s election manifesto pledge and was a key part of the Tories’ appeal to voters in traditional Labour seats which helped the party to secure its 2019 General Election victory. 

Time is of course at the heart of our problems with delivery of fresh food and medicines, many of which require cool chain delivery and which rely on Just In Time manufacturing in order to reach us in good condition. In some cases we have yet to see the impacts of Brexit in these areas but the signs are not good.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson continues to gaslight us into accepting sub-optimal doses of the COVID vaccine. He is going against best advice from the manufacturers and the WHO although they understand our sense of desperation, given the toxic effects of Corona + Brexit. This decision is not risk free and we shall find out the effects by experimentation.

Just 20 days in and Brexit carnage has begun, from the top to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as we enter the Winter of Discontent.

Will we see the dark side of the loon soon?

Mike Cashman sums up for us:

ACCEPT WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND MOVE ON?

How often have you heard this?

Well, this article compiled by Peter Cook summarises some of what has happened in the first 3 weeks of real Brexit. We all need to recognise these real problems that have arisen from the fact of Brexit and from the reckless rushed and incompetent negotiation. No one should refer any more to Project Fear – this is Reality and businesses are facing disaster.

Do we accept that this has happened? Government Ministers consistently refuse to answer questions about reasons for our dreadful situation, whether that is Brexit or Covid. As expected, they have started to blame Covid for Brexit problems.

Will Boris Johnson now move on? Will his Government act honourably, do what the Dutch Government have done and resign en masse with him? Ask your MP.

We finish as we began, with a performance of Pink Floyd’s “Another Prick in the Mall”, on a train after The People’s March:

With thanks to Sy Donne, Irina Fridman, Helga Perry, Adrian Ekins-Daukes, Mike Cashman, Jo Wace, Martin Housden, Lisa Lanfranchi, Carol Fraser, Roger Cracknell, Patricia Manning, Daphne Franks, Peter Daws, June Austin, Greg Newman for helping compile this article.

Mugged by Mogg

Mugged by Mogg

By Adrian Ekins-Daukes

Jacob Rees-Mogg has been slammed for suggesting the people died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy because they listened to the fire brigade’s orders. Mugged by Mogg, Jacob claimed that they lacked ‘common sense’. The Tory MP told LBC host Nick Ferrari that the victims would have survived if they’d just ignored what they were told. Since when would anyone ignored the advice of someone in charge of saving lives if your house was burning down. The Metro reported that Jacob would have left the building as ‘it just seems the common sense thing to do’.

Mogg Fish

A happy fish

Faced with furious complaints that lorry loads of fish had to be thrown into the sea owing to delays caused by Brexit red tape, Jacob Rees-Mogg replied as follows to questions in the house:

“The key is we’ve got our fish back. They are now British fish and they’re better & happier fish for it”

Toby Earle MP stated that unsold fish are rotting on docks, seafood companies are hitting the wall.

Others pointed out that rotting fish are not happy fish. Also, the happiest of all are those who are not caught and live out their lives peacefully because British fisherman have all gone bankrupt because they have no one to sell their fish to!

Click the image to support our work to Re-Boot Britain

This piece of condescending Etonian humour stands comparison with Mary Antoinette’s remarks about cake eating. It is fit for an audience of three-year-olds only, not grown ups inside or outside the House of Commons.

Suffer little children

The Mogg Family

Jacob Rees-Mogg is also under fire for accusing UNICEF of a “political stunt” after the UN agency stepped in to help feed deprived children in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Commons leader hit out at Unicef, which provides humanitarian aid to children worldwide, after it launched its first domestic emergency response in the UK in its over 70-year history. He characterised Unicef’s support as “playing politics” and said it should be “ashamed of itself”.

As part of the support programme of more than £700,000 to help fund projects for children and their families, UNICEF has pledged £25,000 to supply nearly 25,000 breakfasts in a south London borough over the Christmas holidays and February half-term.

After UNICEF’s support in the UK was raised in the Commons, Mogg stated:

“I think it’s a real scandal that UNICEF should be playing politics in this way when it is meant to be looking after people in the poorest, the most deprived countries in the world, where people are starving, where there are famines and there are civil wars. And they make cheap political points of this kind, giving, I think, £25,000 to one council. It is a political stunt of the lowest order.”

He defended the government’s response to child poverty, including expanding free school meals, adding: “UNICEF should be ashamed of itself.”

However, the minister’s comments prompted a backlash, with Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner:

She said: “In one of the richest countries in the world, our children should not be forced to rely on a charity that usually works in war zones and in response to humanitarian disasters. The only scandal here is this rotten Tory government leaving 4.2 million children living in poverty, a number that will only rise due to the coronavirus crisis.”

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said: “Rees-Mogg’s sneering comments are abhorrent – a modern-day version of ‘let them eat cake’.”

Write to your MP using this as content to complain about the slow creep into fascism as espoused by Jacob Rees-Mogg. Refuse to be mugged by Mogg.

Here’s a couple of songs we wrote which express our views on being mugged by Mogg:

Mogg Chorus – with apologies to Paul McCartney
Jacob Rees- Moog – THE BREX-KIP FAR-RIGHT FAR-AGE DOMINATRIX MIX – PG rated

Buy the Rage Against The Brexit Machine songs at Bandcamp to support our continuing work.

Click the image to buy on Bandcamp, where most of the royalties go to the artists
Support Re-Boot Britain
Support our work by clicking the image

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

BACKGROUND

Anna Kettley, UNICEF UK’s director of programmes and advocacy, said: “UNICEF UK is responding to this unprecedented crisis and building on our 25 years’ experience of working on children’s rights in the UK with a one-off domestic response, launched in August, to provide support to vulnerable children and families around the country during this crisis period.

“In partnership with Sustain, the food and farming alliance, over £700k of UNICEF UK funds is being granted to community groups around the country to support their vital work helping children and families at risk of food insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic. UNICEF will continue to spend our international funding helping the world’s poorest children. We believe that every child is important and deserves to survive and thrive no matter where they are born.”

Kettley said UNICEF UK was providing grants of between £5,000 and £25,000, with more than £700,000 being made available in total to 30 community organisations to fund projects for children and families in their area. “For some of the projects, the funding is distributed via a council, but the majority of the grants are being made directly to community organisations,” she said. “In Southwark, the funding has gone directly to School Food Matters, a community organisation.”

UNICEF UK said the first round of grants were confirmed in mid-August and all funded programme activity was due to conclude in February next year.

It has given a £25,000 grant to the community project School Food Matters. The charity says it is working with Premier Foods, Southwark council and Southwark Food Action Alliance – a collective of charitable organisations, residents and community partners – to deliver 18,000 breakfasts to 25 schools for distribution around the borough over the two-week Christmas holidays, as well as an additional 6,750 breakfasts over the February half-term.

The PM’s spokesman declined to comment directly on Rees-Mogg’s remarks, saying: “What we would point towards is the work and the action that we’ve already taken to support the most vulnerable and the poorest families across the country.”