I attended the local church hustings recently to face down lies from the Reform party and the Conservatives, who had fled the scene of the crime. Here are my answers to questions levied by the public. Click on You Tube to view. The whole hustings were two hours and this summary is the shortest I could make it with some annotations of the questions.
The film covers a wide range of issues and I’m available to answer others on request. More below on Food Banks.
I offer five key points of difference compared with the mainstream parties:
100% independent so no party whips to obey. My stakeholders are our citizens.
Brexit must be ended as a priority. No-nonsense trying to “Make Brexit Work” or mealy mouthed accommodations which fail to address the elephant in the room. We stand to gain £140 BILLION per annum as a start from making a commitment to rejoin the EU. Money which can be spent on healing the damage of 14 years of Tory chaos. All talk of growth by other parties is vacuous nonsense without dealing with Brexit.
An acceleration of our efforts towards net zero and the climate crisis in general.
An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a Northern Ireland styled dialogue to resolve the mess.
Reforms to our democracy, truth, trust and transparency in politics.
We have just been ranked as five stars by Stay European, above all the major parties. If you want to Rejoin EU in Gillingham and Rainham, please vote Independent.
Professor Anand Menon recently published a paper for UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) stating that there was no political advantage for Labour or Conservatives in focusing on Brexit as an election issue. I know Anand, having met and spoken with him at events on quite a few occasions. As a fellow academic, this gives me the right to challenge him. I’m sorry mate, but you have confused political expediency with political leadership. Let me explain:
UK in a changing Europe’s research states that neither the Conservatives nor Labour stand to gain much from focusing on Brexit. We know that the word Brexit has gone out of circulation, primarily because (a) hardly any of the political parties want to talk about Brexit and many have demonised party members from even uttering the word (b) the media has a virtual blackout on the word Brexit, preferring ‘global factors’ as a euphemism for the lived experience of the British Brexit people (c) many familiesandfriendcircles do not wish to reopen the toxic conversations that characterised the Brexit referendum. It’s a particularly English condition to sweep difficult conversations under the carpet. But, and it’s a very BIG BUT …
Not talking about Brexit does not make Brexit go away
Leaving the Brexit conversation undone is what therapists call ‘unfinished business’ or ‘closure’, rather like an angry boil that is left to fester. Unless the Brexit boil is popped, it will continue to haunt families with its puss for a generation. UKICE have of course published many fine articles and studies that point out that Brexit is far from done, with many further ‘bumps in the road’ to come. This is why a new conversation about Brexit and Europe is needed. Also why I advocate an active rather than a passive approach to difficult conversations about Europe and Brexit (a passive approach is simply waiting for granny and grandad Brexit to die). This is what I call ‘Brexorcism‘.
Whilst mentioning the B word may not be a vote winner according to Menon, all the ‘offspring’ of Brexit are being talked about as voter priorities. Like it or loathe it, all of the issues on our Brexit iceberg have their roots, fully or partly in Brexit.
All of these electoral issues have their roots wholly or partly in Brexit. Menon is wrong in his analysis.
Menon concludes ‘meh’. I conclude that this is sloppy analysis by UKICE.
Political expediency versus political leadership
Menon is right from UKICE polling data that it may not be politically expedient to mention Brexit. Expediency is not importance however. Two things occur to me:
Firstly and most importantly, political leadership is not about constantly responding to polls about the here and now. This is in effect driving through the rear view mirror. Leadership is about synthesising long-term decisions and short term actions to lead people towards better futures. OK, of course I realise that UKICE is not OK Magazine, but I feel that Menon has conflated expediency with leadership. As a leader, Keir Starmer et al. should be in the business of explaining the connections between our ‘Brexitberg’ elements (NHS collapse, cost of living, migration, UK stagnation, business collapse, lost trade, friction, food shortages, sector specific staff shortages, brain drain etc.) with Brexit. Starmer has stated that he wants to deal with root causes and not symptoms of our problems. Brexit is at the heart of Britain’s decline.
Secondly, snapshots are just that. A snapshot in time. I recall that Menon was first talking about this research at a UKICE event way back in 2022. The focus groups were conducted in Brendan Clarke-Smith’s constituency of Brexity Bassetlaw, Thurrock and Lee Anderson’s constituency of Ashfield !!! This knocks the qualitative findings out of the park in terms of validity. What possessed Public First aka Britain First in choosing these areas and not a mixed sample? And why did UKICE decide to use them for this research? The quantitative poll of 4005 people is now nearly 6 months out of date, so the dataset is also of dubious value. We are nearly at the point where 2/3 of the population accept that Brexit has failed and within striking distance of 70%
Bassetlaw, Thurrock and Ashfield are not representative !!!
Leaders synthesise long-term decisions and short term actions for better futures
Yes, people in Bassetlaw and Thurrock can argue that Brexit realities are the fault of the Tories not being Brexity enough (although I’m at a loss to understand how much more Brexity Johnson, Truss and Sunak’s puppet cabinet could have been), or that Remainers have ‘thwarted’ a true Brexit (I never knew I had so much power, having been ignored by MPs on all sides etc.). Nobody knows or agrees on what a true Brexit would have been and certainly an immediate exit via WTO would have left us with a 10-12% GDP deficit compared with the 4.5% we currently have. This would have been catastrophic. I predict that we will soon reach a point where 70% of people accept that Brexit has failed, even if the B word has been airbrushed out of public discourse. People are not stupid and, like it or not, Brexit and the offspring of Brexit will remain on or under the table as election issues, especially if people keep the conversation going about Brexit. Learn how to do it here:
Learn the skills of Brexorcism here.
Why this matters
In my humble opinion, Menon is feeding Remainers and Rejoiners a false narrative. Having met Anand quite a few times, I sense he is at best a fence sitter on the subject of Brexit in order to keep in with his politicos on both sides of the debate such as David Frost and others. Some tell me that he is a closet Brexiteer, which would explain his misleading conclusions from the research.
The not so secret Labour ‘promise’ to look at Brexit again in 2032 is also another unicorn designed to put Remainers and Rejoiners to sleep. See Faulty Towers for more on Labour’s disingenuous Brexit strategy. Sorry Anand, I expect better from a professor who should know the difference between political expediency and political leadership. I look forward to a conversation about the matter.
Don Adamson writes from the Barnsley Brexit Bunker.
This week’s homework:
Discuss the following statement. Since 2013 the Tories have ‘outsourced’ army recruitment to Crapita; which is a hopelessly incompetent ‘private enterprise company’ that gets obscenely rich on government contracts by overcharging and underperforming; except in those cases where they overcharge and do not perform at all. Crapita has missed Army recruitment targets every year. We all bad years but ten bad years in a row indicates the kind of corruption and incompetence that Gammons and Flagshaggers wanted when they voted for Brexit. The Tories are so delighted with this sheer, crass, unpardonable uselessness that they have begun to put Crapita in charge of Naval and Air Force recruiting. This is music to the ears of the morons who, after everything that has happened, still think Brexit is a brilliant idea.
Please support our UK tour by clicking on the mini.
Meanwhile there is a worse example of sheer, crass, unpardonable stupidity in military matters. Wagner Group is a company of mercenaries that recruits by emptying the Russian prisons of brutish thugs of the worst description. Wagner has cut a swath across Africa; looting, raping and killing gratuitously everywhere they go, usually against unarmed villagers. Wagner Group did not do so well against outnumbered but armed Ukrainians. Wagner Group attempted a coup d’état to oust Putain but made a complete fiasco of it. This is exactly the kind of idea that 21st century Tories love: evil, violent thugs who loot and rape but are so incompetent that they cannot even mount a coup d’état against a regime as inept as Putain’s. How long will it take the Tories to abolish the British armed forces and replace it emptying the prisons of evil thugs and rapists? In this way they will have defence services that cannot even mount a coup d’état to oust a hopelessly incompetent political regime.
This week’s quotes:
Britain’s inflation and finance
… 8.7% in May … price of housing in Britain is soaring … only in Britain is inflation worryingly entrenched … Britain’s problem most acute … mortgage rates are surging … excruciating situation… grim … among G7 countries none has higher inflation than Britain … miserable … what has gone so wrong? … EU workers are missing … labour supply is down by 3% … inflation is unusually persistent… £1Trn government debt when Osborne became Chancellor … £1.5Ttn debt when Osborne left office in 2016 … £1.7Trn debt when going into the pandemic thanks to Osborne’s ‘repair’ of the economy … Britain signed a memorandum of understanding with EU on financial services …. Does not restore Britain’s access to the EU … mortgage rates have surged… Jeremy *unt has told banks to pass on higher interest to customers… Since the end of WW1 … Britain was economically crippled … Britain has been in a long and steady decline … endless cycle of boom and bust … promises of a better tomorrow … Brexit put the tin hat on it …
Ukraine accession to the EU is so important. It creates an incentive for reform and application of law… Do not be so sure our place is lost; some do want us back … a Eurocrat friend said ‘You forget we want you back … Leavers were fond of referring to … an army of bureaucrats but forget that in that army the British were the Brigade of Guards . Many who work for the EU miss the rigour, clarity and discipline that British Eurocrats brought to the party … politician may want to make a British return look difficult. Many of Europe’s staffers would give us our old concessions back in the blink of an eye if it brought British Eurocrats back to Brussels … I find it hard to imagine that the EU would insist on the most stringent conditions before letting Britain Rejoin. They too have been damaged by Brexit (though nowhere near as badly was us) … Question Beaucaire, France, renamed a road that leaves Rue Robert Schuman (EEC founder) and rejoins it 60m later. What is it now called? Answer: Rue de Brexit … Brexit is a disaster that just keeps on disastering … Clacton Coastal Academy … all but two children said they would vote to Rejoin … the norm in schools is zero … something strange about a political class where the government keeps telling us that Brexit is going well and an opposition that that insists they will make Brexit work when the next generation knows it is not going well and cannot be made to work.. Something has got to give… Rejoin March 23 September is causing consternation on the Labour front bench … Keith Starmer is trying to out-Brexit Richy Scumbag … Starmer wrote pro Brexit piece for the Daily Express … who have not got around to paying Starmer for it …
Gutter Express
still unrelentingly positive about booming Brexit Britain … even last week Grease Bogg promised cheaper food thanks to Brexit. He is unlikely to venture into Aldi to check the prices … biggest house price rise in 14 years … Oh Dear…
Daily Excess. Click to read the gutterpress pages.
Pandemic
any hope politicians would put learning lessons ahead of protecting their own repudiations ended when Osborne appeared before the inquiry…. ‘the numbers you refer to are from 2015 to 2020 … I left office in 2015 ’ expect months of high level arse covering … Longest most detailed most expensive enquiry in UK history … why did UK government believe itself to be well prepared when in fact it was woefully unprepared and vulnerable … politicians did not want to commit the money … even though it was number one on the risk register … DHSC knew that the risks were huge … economic outlook was dire … it was more than likely that a moderate pandemic would overrun the system … Jeremy *unt did not attend board meetings … ministers were concerned about *unt’s lack of engagement … no deal Brexit took the focus away from pandemic planning … same lame defence of austerity … we decided to sleepwalk into a £400B disaster … *unt knew the worst case scenario … UK entered the pandemic with its public services depleted, health improvements stalled, health inequalities increased… we did not have resilience in the health service … we were at the bottom of the table in doctors, number of nurses, ITUs, respirators, ventilators … if the next pandemic does not take down the NHS diabetes will … we did not give sufficient thought to a pandemic or any other pathogen …. It is hard to imagine we would do any better in the next pandemic … government has disinvested in infection monitoring services, dismantled key infrastructure … wound down our capacity for drug and vaccine development…. levels of public anger remain high … repeated reminders … Westminster, under the leadership of Johnson, flouted rules … even stupid enough to record photographic and video evidence of gratuitous flouting … Johnson repeated lied… shows how badly things have deteriorated inside the Tory Party …
A stitch up in time saves nine.
Fraud
system for victims to report crimes ‘outsourced’ to the usual suspects … Crapita was hit with a cyber attack … exposed thousands of savers in pension schemes … less than impressive data hygiene … Colchester Council ‘extremely disappointed’ … unsecured Amazon data bucket controlled by Crapita … Crapita is no stranger to financial rip offs … when it comes to general incompetence Crapita is no more reassuring … most notorious is military recruitment … Crapita has missed Army’s annual targets for recruiting new soldiers and officers every year since 2013 … Crapita assisted by PwC … PwC faced a string of large fines for poor auditing … focus of criticism … real problem is not reporting it but the near absence of policing it … less than 1% of reports lead to prosecutions … it will take more than another Crapita deal to address that …
GB News
GB New boss Angelos Frangopoulos is desperately attempting to reposition his channel away from being a home for right wing cranks and conspiracists …. ‘this is not just Channel Nigel Garbage … glad to be shot of Canadian wacko Mark Steyn … found guilty of breaching Ofcom rules when he approvingly interviewed weirdo writer Naomi Wolf on her view that Covid 19 vaccination is ‘mass murder’ …
Lockdown
staff at Mail on Sunday had a leaving party for departing member of staff. Video shows at least 30 people … no social distancing…
Read Private Eyelines on Amazon
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Don Adamson hunkers down in his bunker in Barnsley for another edition of his insanely great ravings with the incisive edge of a bic razor blade.
This week’s homework
One: In the sunlit uplands of Brexit Tory MPs tell lies shamelessly and routinely. A Tory MP who speaks the truth is not only rare but the object of contempt and ridicule by his mates. Harold Macmillan was, reputedly, physically ill when he learned that John Profumo had lied to Parliament. Does this mean that there was a better class of Tory in the 1960s?
Two: Are Johnson and Grease Bogg the best that Oxford University can do? If so what light does this shed on Bertie Wooster’s assertion that he was one of the finest minds of his generation?
Suffer little children.
Three: Discuss the following statement – Nigel Garbage has claimed that there is a lefty woke plot to prevent him from having an account with Barclay’s Bank. As a consequence Garbage may see fit to leave the country. We do not know the actual facts but we do know that anything Nigel Garbage says is suspect. Do we want Nigel Garbage to leave now that he is actually getting real about the failure of Brexit? Personally I would prefer it if the idiots who have not noticed the failure of Brexit left before Garbage.
Four: Cecil Rhodes was part of the process whereby the British government could distance itself from nasty goings on in Africa. Rhodes worked for a private company and was not a British government official. (Yeah Right). Rhodes was part of the process that led to the outbreak of the Second Boer War. It was during that war that the British developed the concentration camp: an invention that caught on in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Some 20,000 Afrikaner women, children and old men died the concentration camps in South, Africa.
None of this excuses Apartheid but it may explain why Afrikaners bear grudges against the British. Cur Jacob Grease Bogg, recently nominated for a knighthood by Johnson for telling shameless lies to the late Queen, said that the concentration camps were a jolly good idea. The Afrikaners were sent there for their own protection. How many Afrikaner civilians might have been killed in that war if they had not been sent to concentration camps ‘for their own safety’? Does the idea of a government sending a private company to perform dirty deeds in Africa remind you of Putain’s government sending the Wagner Group to Africa to kill, rape and plunder?
Footnote: The concentration camps in South Africa were under the control of the British Army. There was one camp where conditions more closely resembled decent humanitarian standards. The officer in charge was a Royal Marine. Turn blue Pongoes.
Five: Discuss the following statement: The Ring of Five Cambridge Spies betrayed Britain for a Soviet Union that had some tattered shred of ideology. Oxford Brexiters have betrayed Britain for the Russian Mafia who are criminals of the worst description. Have the Oxford Brexiters done a FUBAR on Britain beyond the wildest dreams of Stalin; or, for that matter, the wildest dreams of Hitler, Kaiser Bill, Bonaparte and Philip II of Spain?
This week’s quotes:
Prince Andrew
Spitting Image show opened on the West End .. Has reached the ‘no reputation to defend stage’ in which he has been joined by Johnson…
Britain is now an anti Brexit country
… polls confirm this … in the past seven years more than four million people have died … mostly older voters who backed Brexit by 2 to 1 … almost 5 million have reached voting age and overwhelmingly want Britain in the EU … YouGov polls … for the first year polls were close to the referendumb result …. after that ‘Buyer’s Remorse’ set in … steadily more people say we were wrong to leave … moiré Leave voters give Brexit the thumbs up than the thumbs down … proportion of Leave voters who say Brexit has been a success is just one in five. The number who says they have benefitted from Brexit is even lower…. big public appetite for Britain returning to EU.
Johnson’s poisonous legacy will continue to cost us
… for decades … he may be gone but the ruin he has caused will continue … Johnson’s statements churn the stomach … pathetic posturing … bloviating blowhard … Brexit is costing us 5% of GCP every year … almost certainly an understatement … equally useless David Frost negotiated a terrible deal … gave Australia and NA everything they wanted without even bothering to read his brief … added farming to the long list of sectors betrayed by Brexit … these include fishing, manufacturing, food production, financial services education … not a single sector has been helped … built on lies that hurt real people … National Health Service is collapsing, defence cuts on the way, economy is anaemic … shameless charlatan … growth is pathetic, productivity terrible, living standards collapsing …
Johnson asks why have we abandoned the free trade deal with the USA? … USA has no interest in a trade deal with Britain … Johnson could not even get his best mate Trump to bother with one … US business confidence in UK has fallen for third consecutive year …. Brexit cited as the main reason for collapse … Johnson shredded his own reputation as well as that of the country … Johnson’s economically illiterate diatribes…. Department for Brexit opportunities failed to find any … this lying clown beggars belief … his poisonous legacy will continue … MPs voted to censure Johsnon … Most Tory MPs failed to appear … only 7 Tories voted against the report … a crushingly low level of support for Johnson … at the end of Johnson’s career we get the true measure of the man … self obsessed, economical with the truth (to put it mildly) and a coward … his name will not appear on the ballot paper in the by election. He has chosen instead to sulk off into a well paid sunset …
7 years of hurt
Britain has changed for the worse but not forever … a better country can emerge … 7 years on the full ghastly impact of Brexit becomes clearer by the day … an elite project branded as a great day for the popular will … it was a stupid idea devised by clever people …, campaigned for and wrote into law a disastrous future for the nation ,,, Vanity, a lust for power … chose to conspire for in such a predictably terrible course of action … systematically reduce this country … not since Soviet communism lured middle class hearts and minds in the 1930s has such a delusion gripped a sizable clique within the nation’s elite … only with the rise of Nigel Garbage, whose malevolent contribution was to switch from abstract polemic … did it become fully apparent how potent the toxic was becoming … Cameron’s gamble went hideously wrong … more striking is the readiness of its earliest champions to admit that the great project has not worked …
From Don’s bunker to Nigel’s
Nigel Garbage himself has conceded failure … for him the fiasco is the consequence of betrayal not the intrinsic idiocy of the idea … a fiasco it most certainly is … £100B less GDP every year …. Red tape has more than tripled…. Business investment now 31% below pre referendumb trend … manufacturing sector contracted for 10th consecutive month … Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary, says Brexit was ‘historic economic error … economic consequences of Brexit only one aspect of the damage … UK needs a muscular trade deal with the US and that is not even on the agenda … Gammons can bang on all they like about British exceptionalism … we are smaller, less influential, easier to ignore …. Britain’s representatives are no longer seen as serious people … poisonous culture of resentment, post truth that Gammons turbocharged in 2016 has not gone away … a malignancy that is still metastasising …
Tories blame not only the failure of Brexit but everything else on imagined conspiracies of ‘liberal elitists’, judges Whitehall officials. BBC, anti growth coalition … shrill betrayal narratives are the refuge of the political scoundrel … profoundly dangerous … ‘stab in the back’ legend essential to the growth of virulent Nazism in 1930s Germany … matter for serious concern … growing contempt of Tories for core institutions, due process, rule of law … Johnson lied to the Queen … Supreme Court ruled Johnson’s request unlawful … has any modern government been more scornful of the rule of law? … Brexit culture profoundly hierarchical, some Gammons more equal than others … Richy Scumbag focussed on the despicable and futile ‘small boats strategy …
Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and the ‘others’.
Braverman’s strategy is a direct descendant of Garbage’s ‘Breaking Point strategy … denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the United Nations Refugees Agency … yet such criticism emboldens her to press ahead … believe they are speaking on behalf of the masses … the oldest delusion of the autocrat … Brexit was absolutely the wrong answer … Cumming’s pledge on the side of a bus £350M per week for the NHS was a lie … brutal irony of Brexit … raised expectations of dramatic improvements … in practice debased and diminished the ruling class … British soul has taken a beating … public services are on their knees … polls show two thirds of Brits believe Brexit is a failure … and more importantly open to another vote … Brexit vacuous slogans rather than meaningful government principles … any new government will have to work day and night to restore trust that Johnson trashed … long delayed overhaul of the second chamber and honours system and stricter rules on MPs second jobs and political lobbying ….Brexit experience has been a grim object lesson … loss on a global scale … wake up, get busy, it is later than you think, 7 years of this nonsense is long enough. It is time to win again…
Brexit Migration Algorithm – sorted … except Richy Scumbag does not want to sort it out.
Labour and Brexit
Keith Starmer will be challenged to rule out any attempt to rejoin … people around Starmer know that a closer relationship with the EU would be hugely beneficial … joining the euro (an idea that is as economically sensible as it is politically unpalatable) … 20% hit on imports and exports since Brexit … approximately £100B shorn from output …Starmer would have to change the way Britain conducts business … Since May’s tenure UK has tried to pretend that the EU does not exist … ministers refused to listen … arrogant and ignorant … failed spectacularly … they have had enough of humouring the Brits. There will be goodwill but Starmer will be made to work very hard… Labour has jettisoned the baggage of the Corbyn era … it is not just Johnson that helps Labour … Britain is suffering from economic pain that particularly hurts mortgage holders … Scottish National Party support has collapsed … thanks to PC McPlod and erratic book keeping by the SNP … too much luck can be a bad thing … Cameron gambled heavily and came across as one of the worst Prime Ministers on record … Labour comes across as a party that that expects to lose rather than one thinking on how best to lose … good luck may bring Labour to power but will not help them govern … growth prospects are lacking, public services are failing … it will be a horrible time to run the country …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Some of my Remoaner friends keep telling me there are no Brexit Freedoms. They are not looking hard enough. I have come up with a long list of Brexit Freedoms to counterbalance the cost of Brexit, currently standing at an eye watering £128 BILLION, and predicted to outweigh the cost of COVID multiple times into the future. So, doomsayers, prepare for a shock !!
Pints
For years I have been compelled to go into English pubs and say in a weakened voice “Can I have 564 ml of Champagne please?” No longer. I can now stride in proud and say “Stout Yeoman, I want a pint of foaming English brown beer in a straight glass”. And it has a little crown on the side. As I drink the hoppy infusion, I am reminded of are Queen and Prince Andrew. It just gets better and better … Soon, we’ll be able to have English Lions back on our eggs … HM Government state that imperial units like pounds and ounces are widely valued in the UK and are a core part of many people’s British identity. I don’t know anyone of my own age that can count in stones, pounds and ounces. My sense is that this is a LIE.
We now have the Brexit fifty pence piece back, although I confess I have not seen one of late. But it signifies the fact that we now have the Pound back as our currency. I did speak with a woman who told me that her dad said that we no longer had the Pound before Brexit. Did you notice that? Buy one of the rare 50 pence pieces on e-bay and support our work to Re-Boot Britain. Outrageous prices!! 🙂
Buy our new book on Amazon – click the image.
Brexit freedoms o’ fish
Scottish Salmon fishermen report on Farming Today that Europeans still want our salmon, although exports have been hit to EU countries due to Brexit. Since Scottish Salmon is a major Scottish export, salmon fishermen are able to hire entire containers to ship their goods to Europe, reducing the mountain of Brexit paperwork and other costs in their segment of the fishing industry. Sadly this benefit does not exist for other fish varieties and the predicted decline in fishing continues, as predicted by the Remainiacs. And let’s remember this is Scottish Salmon. Once Scotland have their independence, they will take this benefit with them. Scottish Salmon and Whisky are major exports from Scotland.
Against the backdrop of the BBC’s nationalistic drive to back Brexit on Farming Today, The Food and Drink Federation showed that Scotland’s whisky and salmon exports were down by 11% and 6.4% respectively since 2019, with the UK’s total exports of food and drink was down by £2.7 billion (-15.9%) in the first three quarters of 2021 – with £2.4bn (-23.7%) directly from a drop in sales to the EU. It’s not necessarily true that the salmon are swimming against the tide.
Cod only knows …
Helpful comparisons …
Irish unification
The current troubles with Edwin Poots and the DUP draw Irish unification ever closer. The DUP seek to throw away 30 years of relative peace on the island of Ireland by asking the Government to break international law on the Northern Ireland Protocol, a bill which they signed up to. I cannot comprehend the nuclear levels of two faced stupidity being brought to bear on the people of Ireland by the DUP. It seems that plans are underway for a cross-border administration in the wake of the breakdown of the Stormont Government. Meanwhile trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland is UP after Brexit with trade between NI and mainland Britain DOWN. Our Brexit scenarios predict that this will continue to a point where the vast majority of people see the economic advantages of a united Ireland outweigh the religious and political forces that divide the island.
Blue tape
Brexit is reckoned to SAVE £1 BILLION in cutting red tape. It is not specified where this will happen, but we presume it will be in a bonfire on worker protections, food, environmental and other regulations, making our products less safe and opening up Victorian levels of exploitation and climate damage. At the same time, The FT says that Brexit has ADDED £7 BILLION of red tape. We only have to ask lorry drivers, farmers, fishermen et al. Taking Back Control never specified who would gain that control and plainly it was the Government through moral hazard and a return to Victorian England. In case of doubt, £7 bn is more than £1 bn.
Boris Johnson claims that the speed of our vaccination programme was due to Brexit Freedoms. Sadly it is not true. The BBC reported that we have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law. Johnson simply acted first in a desperate move to buy up the vaccine and starve the rest of the world from supplies, like the little boy in the playground who kept all the sweets and then realised that nobody wanted to play with him. By the way, the British vaccine was developed by Turkish and German scientists. I’m surprised that Brexiteers want such a “foreign invasion”.
Brexit freedoms : Rich pickings
Undoubtedly Brexit has caused an exodus of foreign workers, in part due to red tape and associated costs, but, in the main because, England has once again become a racist country under Brexit. Arguably, we did not need Brexit Freedoms to “take back control” of the fields, lorry parks, bus stations etc. I await the queues of Brexit voting OAPs to pick for Britain, drive for Britain, stack shelves for Britain and so on. So far, we have been underwhelmed with applications from “Dad’s Brexit Army”. Meanwhile illegal migration proceeds, due to our Government’s attempts to kill people who flee from terror.
Left outside alone to die by Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.
Sovereignty
The Government claim that the Brexit Freedoms of sovereignty are many and various in their 105 page document. I can only find wind. Grab your bag of Brexit Sovrinty here.
Undoubtedly the showstopper in Brexit Freedoms has been the blue passport. We will pay £30 per family and hours of queuing to benefit from this Brexit Freedom, but clearly it’s worth it. In case of doubt we were always able to have blue passports, even if they were made in France. The Government paper on this is simply FAKE NEWS:
LIES, LIES, LIES. To support our work on the truth about Brexit, click on the lies above.
Funding the NHS
The Government document claims that £57 BILLION is to be given to the NHS. They were promised £18.2 BILLION EVERY YEAR. You do not need a calculator to realise that the £57 billion is actually smaller than £18.2 billion every year. Go compare.
State control
France recently decided to make EDF Energy subsidise energy price hikes. So energy consumers in France will get a 4% price hike whilst UK consumers will experience a 54% price hike. And France is in the EU. How then were France able to do this if they are “controlled by an EU superstate”? See Social Care for more details on our lies about the need to raise national insurance. How was Viktor Orban able to buy his vaccines from Russia whilst being part of the EU? The EU superstate argument is vacuous.
Tampon freedom
We are now free of the Tampon Tax!! Women may rest safe in the knowledge that the VAT man is not taking a percentage of their periodic blood losses. Except that even this is a LIE-Let me explain. The trouble with so-called “tampon freedom” is that this arrangement was made in 2016, whilst we were a member of the EU. We have NOT been prevented from removing tax on tampons by our EU membership. UPDATE : the 5% tampon tax was only reduced by 1%. Brexit is literally bleeding Britain to death …
LIE Lets.
Amidst the other Brexit Freedoms that The Government paper puts forward that we could not do as members of EU are:
Giving up smoking – really?
Adding more arsenic into children’s food.
Healthy eating – who knew that the EU were stopping this?
Ending the throw away culture – Britain leads the world in throw away culture.
Faster HGV licence approval by reducing the difficulty of HGV tests, so more dangerous OAP lorry drivers on the roads.
Simpler, better railways – this means not doing the Northern leg of HS2.
Pints of French champagne.
Use of the 105 page document for redecoration of 10 Downing Street when Boris Johnson leaves.
Don Adamson reports the news that the papers refuse to print. Don writes from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley.
When a child is born
This week’s homework: Discuss the following statements:
1. Johnson fanzine has announced that Princess Nut Nuts is expecting again. This is (says the Daily Mail) Johnson’s 8th child. There are probably more that we do not know of. Johnson objects to contraception for ecological reasons. He is against single use plastic. Gammons and flagshaggers will tell you that genetics count for more than experience or learning. That being Johnson and his ilk should be forcibly vasectomised.
2. Johnson is the diarrhoea that keeps on giving.
3. Discuss the following statement: ‘Gentlemen in England now abed will hold their manhood cheap and think themselves accursed they were not here.’ Shakespeare reckoned without Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes who brag about their superlative gallantry in wars that ended before they were born. Did Shakespeare get it wrong or is it more a case of Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes may be a lot of things but they are not gentlemen?
Coincidence or cock up?
Have Patience
This week’s quotes: “Lady Patience Wheatcroft is not in favour with the Tories after shifting from the Tory benches to the cross benches and, while once reliably Conservative, has made her opposition to Brexit clear … after voting for Brexit Bournemouth is in deep remorse, with the Lib Dems establishing themselves as the dominant force on the local council … Dorset Chamber of Commerce complained that Brexit was having ‘serious detrimental impact on exports’… not delivering the positives that were promised … Scotland may yet prove a steep uphill climb for Labour while it continues to be pro Brexit … don’t write off the SNP … Labour’s position on the EU and the Lib Dem’s ambivalence … will be an open door for The SNP at the next election … ‘Voter ID’ did not help the Tories … next they will stipulate that the only valid proof of ID will be a Tory Party membership card … inaugural conference of the Conservative Democratic organisation, convened by those Tories horrified by the sudden leftward lurch into outright Communism that the party has taken under Richy Scumbag (stop laughing) … Jacob Grease Bogg … perhaps still stung by the fact that during his tenure as Secretary of State for Brexit Opportunities he never found any …. started plucking Brexit benefits from his limited imagination … spectacular Bulwarks even by Grease Bogg standards …
Have Patience.
Anger is an energy
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is incensed … If Lindsay Hoyle is angry with Tories then they really are running out of friends … Johnson leans on rich friends for freebies … on 25 separate occasions since August he has passed through Heathrow airports palatial Windsor Suite. At £1,800 a pop the suite is part of Heathrow’s VIP experience. He has received almost £50,000 in lounge hospitality alone …£250,000: Johnson’s legal fees funded by the taxpayer…. £2.5M advance Johnson received from speaking agency in January …
Surrey Heath council covers Gove’s constituency was won by the Lib Dems … Reigate and Banstead is now the only council in Surrey where Tories have a majority . Right across the stockbroker belt Tory ministers and ex ministers saw control of councils go to the Lib Dems’… another example of this government’s neglect and mismanagement…
Abandon ship
NHS is now so overloaded that delays and human errors are inevitable and increasing … subject to aggressive litigation … as if doctors needed another reason to abandon the NHS … a recent survey by the Medical Protection society of doctors who had been reported to the GMC in the past five years … nearly a third had experienced suicidal thoughts … NHS has always been reliant on overseas trained doctors, even more so now that many UK trained doctors are leaving …
GMC has adopted 23 recommendations to stamp out bias against ethnic minority doctors. A greater problem is that GMC expects impossibly high standards of performance in a crumbling health service with more complaining patients … workload is higher than the service can competently manage … Regime’s ineptitude. Hobbled by Cronyism and graft … economy is creating fewer opportunities … less direct foreign investment … danger of accelerating, perhaps violent, decline …
Nowhere man
We have no clue what Starmer really believes in … will not tell us what our post Brexit relationship with EU should be … Britain’s Public Order Act goes too far … UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it imposed ‘serious and undue restriction’ … fears of erosion of civil liberties in Britain … Further indication of Home Office authoritarian tendencies …. a law does not need to put people in prison to do damage … further eroding trust in the police following a series of dreadful scandals at the Met … badly written law … hard to justify a move to Britain … Britain’s car industry is another pressure point ….
Under pressure
Steelmaking is also under strain … too many unanswered questions … Brexit upheavals add to uncertainty. … Over 2M British homes suffer from disrepair that pose a risk to public health … costs to NHS estimated at £290M a year …Tories and Britain would like to forget about Thick Lizzie … on tour … to chide the enemies of freedom and stand up to China … given her record it is surprising people listen to her … calls for an ‘economic NATO to stand up to China … (COMMENT: There is one: the EU) … Thick Lizzie may be the least successful PM in British history … emblematic of deeper problems in government … complains about having no control (COMMENT: Surely that is the whole point of Brexit?) …
Extract from Private Eyelines – click to view.
Migration observatory
Braverman complains about 1M immigrants to UK this year without mentioning that she is responsible … Thick Lizzie is a problem for the Tories not because she is the exception but because she is the rule … her ideas live on … Johnson intervenes only if he thinks it will enhance his slim chances of a return to power … loony economic policies … Fox News fired *ucker Carlson … viewership fell from 3M during his final week to 1.5 the following week … biggest beneficiary has been Newsmax, even further right than Fox … viewership rose from 150,000 to nearly 500,000 ..
Praise the Lords
Loss of Carlson’s divisive populism has led 1.15M people to abandon conservative cable news in prime time… Performance in the House of Lords by Lord Johnson of Lainston … caused despair even on Tory benches … decline in car manufacturing is an especially depressing example of Brexit affecting industry … Johnson saw it as an opportunity to take puerile swipes at the EU … disturbing comments by Cur James Dyson (COMMENT: notorious Brexiter) that the government was not on the side of industry …
Lord Fox (Lib Dems) said industry was at a watershed … car manufacturers would simply go to France or Germany … one Tory peer said waves of political appointees have made Tory benches a laughing stock … worst fears for the Lords realised … gift for the abolitionists ….
Gammon corner
All Perspectives is still pumping money into GB News despite £33M losses … takes funds injected by investors to £120M … Who can explain what Labour’s economic policy is? … numbers raising their hands to answer alarmingly low … at Derby …’Is Brexit going well or badly? Result Well 0% Badly 100% … Same in Edinburgh and Glasgow … populists love to inflame their fellow believers with slogans, myths for a past that never was … recent National Conservative conference highlighted the threat of the far right … most mainstream Tories wisely stayed away.
Why Michael Gove chose to appear is baffling (COMMENT: Not baffling to me – Gove is a Murdoch lackey of the worst description) … strange and unsettling London conference … home to an evangelical Christian church … Johnson was hardly more popular than Scumbag…. inward looking, illiberal, censorious conservatism … nostalgia for a rose tinted past … fuelled by anger, pessimism, paranoia and disdain for any who disagree … portray opponents as sinister and evil. Object furiously when the same accusations are levelled at them … demonisation of anybody to the left of them; which is probably 95% of the British population….
Nat-C Party
NATcees assertion of moral superiority … no acknowledgement that they have won four successive elections and might themselves be responsible for the dire state of the nation … Braverman distanced herself from an immigration which she has been in charge of for 7 months … Johnson was the embodiment of selfish reckless individualism that they now decry … Rees Mogg did admit that requiring ID cards to votes was a failed attempt at gerrymandering … hailed Brexit … none thought fit to mention the calamitous consequences of Brexit … has actually boosted immigration …
Braverman castigated the ‘prognosticators of doom’ who said Brexit would be a catastrophe … Tory Party beginning to fragment into warring factions as it faces an electoral drubbing … an ugly search for scapegoats … sensible Conservatives stayed away …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
In this roundup of what could be euphemistically called fun loving criminals, I make some unemotional comparisons of people who should be in jail for crimes against humanity with Rolf Harris. Without excusing Harris for his crimes, it is fair to say that Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nigel Farage, Matt Hancock, Dominic Cummings et al. have done more damage to young people’s lives, through their decisions on Brexit, Brexonomics, immigration and COVID. Why then are they not in prison?
Brexit is a crimescene
The impact of Brexit is already evident across all the STEEPLE factors: Sociological, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal and Ethical. See our articles on the impacts at Scottish Bylines and Biz Catalyst 360. The costs of all of these STEEPLE factors are one thing, but if they were to be offset greatly by Brexit benefits which outweigh the costs, then Brexit will have been worth it. However, no Brexit benefits have accrued so far, nor are any on the horizon, apart from some flaky notions of ‘freedom’. See our article on Brexit freedoms for a full list of these so-called freedoms.
Economic, environmental and social damage from Brexit ultimately impact people’s lives and livelihoods. Accordingly, the perpetrators of these crimes must therefore be locked up as a bare minimum. Their crimes are more significant than Harris’ heinous crimes, however hard that might be to hear. And the impacts will become even more pronounced as Brexit reveals its full horrors. Sure, Boris Johnson seems like a loveable rogue, but he is not a fun loving criminal, just a pound shop thief.
Trussonomics
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng put young people’s hopes of home ownership into the deep freeze with their cocaine fuelled experiment on the nation called ‘Trussonomics‘. In just one weekend, Truss and Kwarteng took £70 BILLION off the UK balance sheet. OK, it’s only money, but such things have significant impacts on lives and livelihoods. I pay my taxes so that our politicians can make careful decisions about macro-economics. I don’t expect them to behave like gamblers in a casino on smack, crackle and pop. Accordingly, Kemi Badenoch, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Penny Morduant are also key players in destroying the value of Britain through their bungled Brexit decisions.
Wreckers of lives and livelihoods
Child killers
Suella Braverman and Priti Patel’s time as Home Secretaries have made Theresa May’s hostile environment look like a trip to a Butlins’ holiday camp. It is not something to be proud of to dream of children being deported to Rwanda. And better alternatives are available. See our two minute answer to immigration below.
Immigration sorted in just two minutes
Immigration has failed over 13 years. Brexit did not deliver
and Rishi Sunackered is simply too weak to sack Braverman, as our micro film in this tweet shows:
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 24, 2023
Sunakered – Feat James O’Brien
COVID killers
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock’s decision to put infected COVID patients into care homes had an estimated impact of 30 000 unnecessary deaths. In case you are wondering, this was a political CHOICE and not a necessity. Their decision was based on Dominic Cummings’ obsession with the idea of herd immunity. This again is a crime for which no punishment has been administered to date.
Instead, Matt Hancock got £400 000 on ‘I’m a Celebrity’. Michelle Mone and Dido Harding disappeared with hundreds of thousands of pounds from dodgy PPE contracts. Boris Johnson escaped to go on the conference circuit and Cummings scarpered from the crime scene having driven to Barnard Castle to check his eyesight.
Dying for Boris – find the album at https://academy-of-rock.bandcamp.com/
Partygate is one thing, but 30 000 avoidable deaths another thing altogether. Here’s today’s edition of ‘The Son’ – Populist Political Papers Parodied:
The Son – Click the image to read Private Eyelines on Amazon.
These are not fun loving criminals, they are professional crooks. In the words of Donald Trump:
The aftermath of the Trump election shows us that we still have a long way to go in order to lead with truth, transparency and humility in a troubled world. In the UK, Boris Johnson is copying Trump’s design, by escalating his false promises, blame and lies to nuclear levels. “Operation Moonshot” has just failed to deliver. Christmas is almost certainly cancelled. Johnson continues to blame others for our Government’s continual “Cake and Eat it too” approach to Brexit negotiations. Changing Minds on Brexit on an industrial scale will be required if we are to return towards trust in politics and politicians. In this context I intend to serialise some chapters of my book “Let’s Talk About BREX..it“.
A successful Brexorcism takes skill, patience and time. Here is the preface to the book:
Why I wrote this book
I was in my late 50’s when Brexit began. I am now over 60 and although Brexit is “in the microwave, gas mark four”, it is still far from done, some would say overdone. Brexit will probably come undone in the coming year one way or another. Speaking personally, Brexit will not affect me positively or negatively. Outside my anti-Brexit life, I am an author, business consultant, speaker and knowledge worker who has always traded on a worldwide basis. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be in a shallow grave by the time that any of the supposed Brexit benefits materialise. Even 18th Century retro-Latin imperialist adventure capitalist Jacob Rees-Mogg said that we will get nothing back from Brexit for 50 years … I’m impatient in the age of Corona … not for myself, but for future generations.
Setting Brexit and Corona aside for a moment, we are merely responsible landlords of planet earth. If we do well in our lives, our aim should be to leave the planet in a better state that when we arrived. If the nature of our life and work does not allow us to answer that call, we must at least be guided by the principle of “do no harm.” We owe it to our children, their kids and the planet to do our best and stand up to those who would do harm in pursuit of narrower and more destructive goals. Brexit is a narrow ambition that would continue England’s love affair with disaster capitalism, lower standards of environmental stewardship and increased carbon footprints from more global trading. This is all happening at a time when the drive to solve world problems requires greater levels of collaborative leadership and co-dependency. Complex world problems require joined up thinking instead of splendid isolation and “I’m alright Jack and Jill” behaviours.
This requires us to continue the conversation with leave voters and, of course, Remainers, some of whom now have terminal Brexit apathy. These difficult conversations are made even more difficult when we currently must conduct them using socially distanced means. This book equips you with strategies, skills and stories to help you have these difficult conversations. A mind shift requires skill, patience and time. Over thousands of hours of fieldwork, it becomes apparent that, sometimes you need several sittings with your chosen subject, client or victim. The book provides a compendium of support with skill and patience. It will also help you use your precious time to greater impact.
Grab a copy of Let’s Talk About Brex..it on Amazon – click the review
Human beings have achieved great things for the planet. Sadly the human condition also includes a few human faults. Greed, avarice, ego and so on. We have witnessed it most recently in the fanatical stockpiling of toilet rolls amidst the Corona crisis. It means we think short term, sometimes selfishly and nostalgically. Crucially we don’t always realise that we are in this together with our neighbours and others we share this fragile earth with. As far as I know, earthworms, hydrangeas and molluscs do not share the faults of the “human race.” It is perhaps time to stop racing and trying to Trump each other, to consider what we can learn from the rest of the animal and plant kingdom. After all, we are allegedly more intelligent than snails … We must learn to be responsible custodians of planet earth. Brexit threatens to isolate Britain in a world that desperately needs more collaboration and co-operation. Worse still, Brexit takes Scotland, Northern Ireland and some parts of Wales and England down with it. To what purpose? I am still waiting for answers.
You may be asking yourself “Surely it is too late to stop Brexit? A piece of paper was signed on 31 January 2020 so isn’t it all done now?” I will work through the arguments as to why Brexit can be stopped later in this book. However, some Remainers suffer from what psychologists call “Learned Helplessness”? This is the condition where people believe that there is nothing they can do to alter the course of Brexit or that they should not interfere, due to faux notions of “democracy” or “the will of the people”. In other words “we can’t do anything” and “we must not do anything”. My own brother who voted to Remain is part of what the Rt Hon Ken Clarke calls the “indifferent majority” and has quoted “the will of the people”. In truth he is fearful of the far right and it’s easier to comply rather than resist. Whilst I completely understand his position and that of others like him, such people are an absolute danger to the resolution of such problems. I am quite sure that the vast majority of the German people did not think that Mr Hitler would do anything awful in 1938. Some simply looked away. Simply stated, silence is assent.
Taking first the issue of feeling there is nothing that can be done to change things, this is fundamentally untrue. This book offers a wide palette of things we can do. At the highest levels of thinking, quite simply, Brexit is a political process and not a legal one. All that is needed at the basic level would be an e-mail to cancel it, followed by a lot of grovelling in private, probably the fall of the prevailing Government or certainly the key players. Eventually a lengthy public process would be created and some “ceremony” to allow us to rejoin the EU or simply not to leave. However, this “christening ceremony” would almost certainly be followed by “terms and conditions”, based on the fact that our Brexit belligerence has been largely informed by decades of the UK “having its cake and eat it too” aka getting its own way on things like Shengen, the Euro etc.
On the question of “should we interfere?” this again is a simple matter to debunk. Democracy informed by gross lies on the NHS, immigration etc. targeted Facebook ads, overspending on election campaigns are not the high-water marks of democracy. In any case, some four years on, the demographics of Brexit have altered considerably with approximately 1.5 million leave voters having spun off this mortal coil and 1.7 million young people becoming eligible to vote, creating a significant shift on the “will of the people”. As I write this update, it rather seems that these demographics are likely to be disproportionately affected by Boris Johnson’s Corona Cull of older voters. In any case, “Generation Greta”, above all else, understand our connectedness and co-dependency.
The other question that should be troubling you some four years later is the one that asks the Buzzcocks’ Brexit question “What do I get?”. Perhaps we don’t ask the question in a selfish way, but nonetheless it becomes relevant to ask what benefits are on offer to our fellow citizens if we are to endure some 50 years of pain to get there. It is a question I’ve asked tirelessly during thousands of hours of street encounters and one I still cannot get any sensible answers on from the common man or woman. The best I have had in recent times came from the man who wanted to leave the EU so that he could land a 5 lb bass from the Swale in Kent and the other man who was willing to throw all the benefits of EU membership away because he personally thought that garlic was used too much in the local cafes and restaurants.
Click on the image to view the follow up volume on Amazon.
Brexit is, at one level, a gross example of selfishness, greed and avarice by a few disaster capitalists. These people have successfully persuaded the masses that Brexit will be good for them, although the mounting body of evidence suggests otherwise. The Dunning Kruger effect and misplaced pride prevent some leave voters from admitting that Brexit will not deliver any of the supposed benefits we were mis-sold so slickly and compellingly. This plays out daily via snappy catchphrases such as “Take Back Control”, “Brexit Means Brexit”, “Pop Brexit in the microwave”, “Let’s get Brexit done” etc. Feelings overwhelm facts in the tsunami of data that arrives daily across our TV screens, computers and smartphones. In the words of XTC “Senses Working Overtime”.
The information age is also in part responsible for the Brexit vote. Aside from interference in the voting process by Cambridge Analytica and underground targeted Facebook ads, another effect is in play here. We receive some 34 GB of data daily. This more than the average person received in their entire life in 1800. Quite naturally the response to “drowning in data” in some cases is to shut down from information overload altogether. Nigel Farage understood this well, when he asked the nation to vote with their hearts and not their heads after we were numbed senseless by data.
I originally titled this book “The Brexit Monologues.” Why a monologue I hear you say? Surely a conversation is a dialogue? Well some of the conversations I’ve had with some hardcore leave voters have been monologues. In other words they simply wish to unload their “story” on me before there is any possibility of a dialogue. I have had literally thousands of conversations with Brexiteers in cafés, bars and on the street. Listening skills do not usually begin until I have invested sufficient time and energy in understanding their viewpoints, however much I may disagree with them. It is also essential to establish a platform of expertise and some basic trust if they are to listen to you in preference to their own trusted advisor, whether that is Nigel Farage or the bloke in the pub. Why exactly should they wish to listen to me anyway? Many of them simply want to download their concerns, issues and fantasies about Brexit and their feelings of being left behind. In listening to these people, I have found that these monologues are actually quite revealing. At the same time, some level of change can occur by simply allowing these people to vent their feelings of rage, disappointment, and regret about their lives. Occasionally and usually after a degree of patient listening, it is possible to separate their feelings from the causes of these feelings. In other words to separate their regrets from the fact that the EU is not the root cause of their regrets. Once we achieve this, we have the possibility for what I term a “Brexorcism”, in other words a shift in their beliefs about the world and about Brexit in particular.
Click the image to find the book.
Changing Minds on Brexit provides strategies, skills and stories to help you change minds, whilst helping you to look after yourselves in the process. I use the word Brexorcism not because I’m expecting you to throw holy water at your subjects! Nor do I expect you to have to deal with people whose heads and viewpoints rotate 360 degrees. We are generally dealing with quasi-religious beliefs or even identity level change, where Brexit is intimately linked with people’s sense of self, Queen, country and flag. When we engage with a leave voter, we are sometimes challenging people at the level of who they are or the very why of their being. This requires skill, time, patience and flexibility on our part.
The book also helps with healing the divides that Brexit has set up on our DIsUnited Kingdom, whether family, friend or community based.
This book is not just about Brexit ghostbusting. Where Brexit leads, Trump, Erdogan and others follow. Just as sure as ladies’ hemlines rise and fall for no particular reason with the whims of fashion every year, populism and the rise of the far right in difficult times are also fashion statements that others follow. So, you will find this book of immense value if you are trying to fight populism anywhere in the world.
On New Year’s Day 2017 I coined the catchphrase “Break Brexit Before Brexit Breaks Britain” in the shower. I note this has been adopted and adapted quite widely. I recently realised that it needed updating. On New Year’s Day 2019 I came up with a new mantra which remains relevant:
“We seek a Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World.”
I coined this phrase on New Year’s Day 2018. It’s still relevant.
We are all in this together and it is about time we woke up to the fact. We can no longer live in unsplendid isolation in the 4th industrial age. Yes, we need to reform our politics and the very notions of capitalism if we are to survive. But turning our backs on problems and opportunities that we face as a global village is not a sensible response.
I hope this gives some clues as to why you might want to read the book … read on …
Take Action
Write to your MP and demand that they oppose the toxic combination of Corona + Brexit
In this roundup of Jacob’s Crackers, we chart the unprecedenteddevelopments in our Government’s idiotic approach to Brexit, COVID and Trump. I am finding it very difficult to distinguish satire from reality, as Boris Johnson lurches from the COVID car crash to our Britastrophe in waiting …
Ask that Brexit be suspended in the wake of Corona
Thank The Lords
The House of Lords firmly rejected the idea of breaking international law in order to “Get Brexit Done”. Johnson’s response? “Carry On Breaking The Law”. The likely outcome? Britain will be twinned with North Korea as a rogue state. The EU and US will treat Britain accordingly.
Trust is essential for all trade and business – The UK is not trustworthy
Write to members of the House of Lords – Point out that the internal markets bill was NOT a manifesto promise and therefore it is perfectly reasonable for the House of Lords to continue to oppose it.
World Beating COVID deaths
Once again, we lead Europe with COVID deaths, due to our “too little, too late’ approach”. This Twitter thread sums up the problems:
UK : "World beating deaths"
We lead Europe with 50 000 reported #COVID19 deaths
— Peter Cook – Leadership for a Better World (@academyofrock) November 12, 2020
Please Retweet this and related tweets. Tweet your MP with a personal message about #suspendbrexit. Hold their feet to the fire.
Rats deserting the sinking ship
If the COVID deaths were not bad enough, it seems that Downing Street is more concerned with petty power squabbles between Dominic Cummings, his cronies and Boris’ girlfriends. Whitehall is now occupied by a large number of Vote Leave cronies and we await the departure of Dominic Cummings and our idiot negotiator David Frost, following Lee Kane’s departure last night. Watch Channel 4 News last night to find out more:
Since this time cronyism has gone from bad to worse under Johnson. It has continued under Truss and Sunak.
To learn more about cronyism in Whitehall check out My Little Crony by Sophie Hill
Old Durham Town remade in our studio.
IBS – Irritable Brexit Syndrome
If all of the above were not enough to make you think that we have lost control of our senses, swivel eyed loons John Redwood and, not IBS, but IDS (Iain Duncan Smith) have pointed out that Britain is bigger than the US. They have also told Joe Biden had better watch his step if he wants to get a trade deal with Britain. Texas and California are bigger than the US geographically, never mind the economy. The US economy is 20 x larger than the UK economy. For the avoidance of doubt:
Size is important – we are 40 x smaller than the US.
John Redwood “Mine’s bigger than yours” Retweet and share to your MP
Smith took time out from snacking on his bogies to have a go at Joe Biden, presumably because he’s a decent man. Smith can’t even qualify as a man, a monstrous freeloader and charlatan who relished his persecution of the vulnerable. https://t.co/cuGUjD4uQy
Boris Johnson and Priti Patel scraped the bottom of the barrel by claiming that ending our freedom of movement was somehow a great triumph, whilst trying to pretend that the matter does not apply to British people. Johnson seems to have forgotten that he said exactly the opposite when he was seeking people’s votes for Brexit. In the words of Johnny Rotten:
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
We are all Citizens of Nowhere. Download In Limbo from our Bandcamp site.
If Jacob’s crackers, all the while, Johnson continues to self isolate from the truth about COVID and Brexit, Trump is also bunkering down, whilst he makes a new series of “Borat” with Rudy Giuliani. Sadly his tweet was deleted …
Here is a roundup of Brexit news in case you are bored with COVID apathy. Remember COVID is a crisis. Brexit a disaster in slow motion. Brexit will make the bigger impact on our country in the long run. The toxic combination of Corona + Brexit = a Britastrophe. We must pull back from a Do or Die Brexit. Your ditch awaits Mr Johnson.
Down on the farm
I watched with dismay, as Parliament voted to lower our food standards. This opens the door to hormone fed beef, chlorinated chicken and a host of other dodgy practices. In case you think this doesn’t matter, US cases of food poisoning are some 10 times higher than our country.
I have mixed feelings about the farmers. I helped Liz Webster, PPC for Swindon, gain the only TV coverage for the Lib Dems in the entire South West in 2017. Liz organised the farmers marches. I attended the last event to be told that they did not wish to mention Brexit, as the issue was toxic. Instead they protest to save themselves. Parochial self-interest is a hardy perennial problem of Remain. There is a hierarchy of problems here with Brexit at the apex. In other words, stopping Brexit leads to solutions to other issues such as food standards, EU citizens rights and so on. But people would rather form into silos (sic), allowing our Government to operate “divide and rule” politics. Oh well, the farmers have been composted and we all lose.
Die Another Day
We’ve had “Do or Die” and “Die in a Ditch” from Boris Johnson, so we may as well have “Die Another Day” or “Live and Let Die”. Brexit negotiations remain deadlocked. Johnson is trapped by the ERG on one side, funded by Russia and wanting No Deal, which nobody voted for. He is also confounded by the EU, who must satisfy the four freedoms and protect their enterprise. It is always unwise to capitulate to bullies. The EU cannot give Britain a better deal for less money, as it will threaten the cohesion of the other 27 member states. I covered this point in the post Brexit Choices.
Why then are the negotiations deadlocked? Quite simply the “mechanics” of Brexit remain unresolvable. By moving one part of the puzzle to resolve one issue, the other parts become entangled. It’s what we call a “Wicked Problem” in consulting circles. Wicked problem do not lend themselves to simple solutions as Boris Johnson would like to believe. As reported last year, changing the leader or applying more “bluster” does not alter the underlying problems that exist with Brexit.
The Golf Club analogy
BOJONA-20
The latest instalment of industrial scale lies and gaslighting comes from yesterday’s COVID announcements. With £40 Billion worth of tax rises now inevitable, let’s examine some COVID facts that Boris Johnson must have missed whilst chasing a violinist …
Scientists advised the Government to install circuit breakers to stop Corona contagion on September 21, 2020. Ignored.
Keir Starmer has just asked the Prime Minister to follow the science and install a 2-3 week circuit breaker across the UK. I predict he will either be ignored or blamed for the deaths already baked in by Johnson’s lack of action from mid-September, when he was talking about “Getting Christmas Done”. This is a repeat performance from February, when Johnson was more concerned with bonging bells, shaking hands and minting 50 pence coins than running the country.
670 NHS deaths during the first wave due to inaction. 30 000 unnecessary deaths overall
Test and Trace is still not working, despite Matt Hancock promising to get it up and running many months ago. Without measurement, there can be no management of COVID and the idea of “Controlling the Virus” is at best fanciful, at worst dangerous.
Still pursuing Cummings eugenics aka herd immunity model
In case you think that the idea of unnecessary deaths are a feature of Brexit, please read what Wendy Novak has to say on the matter at Brexit : A matter of life or death.
And Johnson now does not want to appear in front of the public, having hired Allegra Stratton to handle “comms” so he can move on to pursue more important matters.
The lesson for us all is neatly summed up by James O’Brien:
The four key lessons of the first lockdown: 1) Going in late makes everything worse. 2) Coming out early makes everything worse. 3) Not using it to get proper Test, Track & Trace in place makes everything worse. 4) Unclear messaging makes everything worse.
