Don Adamson writes from Yorkshire on the latest mayhem which contributes to our Britastrophe.
This week’s quotes: “Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is ailing and listless, a casualty of Johnson’s lack of seriousness … Few doubt the new chancellor’s intellect but he swings between genius and idiocy … an attention span of four seconds … The Chancellor rattles the Treasury … the Treasury needs good advice more than ever … may not be enough to avoid a downturn … None of this bodes well for the public finances. Yet the government is expected to announce tax cuts … Having got their woman into Downing St dodgy financiers can look forward to … deregulate their businesses yet further … Kwarteng should be able to get his ideas through with less sense checking from experienced officials…. However resounding the next crash the sound for friends of Kwasi wil be ‘kerching’ … Department of Health and Social Care is proving shy about efforts to claw back billions of pounds from underperforming suppliers … progress on suspect suppliers is close to bugger all …Priti Patel put former Australian Foreign Secretary (who helped create Australia’s harsh anti-refugee system) in charge of ‘independent review’ of her Rwanda scheme … leaked files showed guards hitting children or demanding sex from female inmates in grim camps in Papua New Guinea … If Downer could not detect abuse in Australia’s infamous offshore camps it seems unlikely he will spot it in Rwanda … Chris Philp, new appointment as Chief Secretary to the Treasury … why pay any tax at all when they can simply fold their companies when owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to Revenue and Customs … It was refreshing to hear a Labour Politician unapologetic about opposing Brexit, clear about the palpable damage was doing … Sept ans plus tard qui peut pretendre que le Royaume-Uni a beneficie du Brexit (Translation – after seven years who can pretend that the UK benefits from Brexit) … the answer is next to nobody. The tragedy is that the few who do pretend are sitting round the cabinet table, living in la la land imagining that Brexiters who ‘knew what they were voting for’ knew that it was bankers getting bigger bonuses … many of Thick Lizzie and Kwarteng’s plans are detailed in an economically illiterate pamphlet they published ten years ago … Britannia Unchained … unremarkable, badly researched, cherry picked data using taxi drivers’ anecdotes as ‘evidence.’ … evidence is thin … lifting the ban on bankers’ bonuses … even Johnson retreated on this idea … the authors without a science or maths degree between them or any sense of irony … one of the most illiterate parts of the prospectus is the notion that we will all have to work harder … in fact British workers put in longer hours but productivity remains low … the obvious change is more training, investment and better management … if you don’t believe ‘Britannia Unchanged’ the pamphlet has the evidence to convince you … the opinions of taxi drivers … the authors are terrible at maths, economically illiterate, ignorant of science and engineering and completely unaware of how to research a book or write well … smug, selfish, self satisfied, lacking in empathy, ignorant of facts and believing in their own fantasy economics …unfortunately they are now running the country …
Pip Pip
Don Adamson, Medway Delta (Retired), Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class
The Queen is dead. God Save the King. My first thought on hearing the news was about Prime Ministers. Churchill, love him or hate him punched a hole in history. Eden is remembered for a grave error after years of respectable public service. He should have listened to the diplomats. MacMillan dragged the Tory Party kicking and screaming in the 20th century. Pity the effect was temporary. Douglas-Home was unlucky with his timing. He presided over an exhausted and accident prone government. You could say the same about Brown. Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major could have achieved more but for the lunatics around them who p****d in the soup. Blair tried to drag the Labour party kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Pity the effect was temporary. Cameron May, Johnson and Truss were/are worse than useless. These Tories do not learn from their experiences.
We now have Charles III. He experienced the longest apprenticeship in history and his best years are behind him. I wish him well but I cannot help feeling that if it is necessary for the monarch to submit meekly to Tory lies then the Monarchy has outlived its usefulness.
HMQ visited NZ in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee. NZ is a realm so Government House took the lead. I was tasked to approach the NZ Post Office to arrange for mail to be collected and delivered to the Royal Party. I went over there and found this old fossil with a pile of documents on his desk. He pointed at the pile and insisted the information was all there. He would have it all sorted in time for the Royal Visit. I reported this through the proper channels. It was getting rather close to the visit when I got a telegram from London saying that they really needed that schedule of postal delivery and collections. I returned to the NZ Post Office and found the same swivel eyed loon staring at the same pile of papers.
I suggested that we needed to match the visit itinerary with daily times when the Post Office closed their mail bags and sent the bags on their way. It was fussy, detailed work and easy to make a mistake. It was certainly not rocket science. All you needed to do was concentrate and check your findings carefully. According to the itinerary HMQ would be in a certain town on a certain date. Ask the Post Office to collect and deliver mail in accordance with existing schedules. It took about an hour. I made two copies of the draft, left one copy with NZPO and took the other back to my office to incorporate into a telegram. A few days later we got a reply along the lines of thanks chaps, this is what we need but may we suggest one, repeat one, very minor repeat minor amendment. I phoned the swivel eyed loon in the NZPO who went ballistic: how dare I criticise the splendid work he did. I called him down and he agreed to the one, repeat one, very minor adjustment. I later learned that the swivel eyed loon was decorated for his efforts. That is right. Somebody else got the medal for the work I did. I might have been angry if I had not been laughing so much. Besides: one hour of uncomplicated work hardly merits a medal. Such things happen. The captain of a destroyer was awarded a medal for his heroism at Dunkirk. Later investigation revealed that the captain had been on leave that week. The medal should have gone to the first mate. You expect incompetence from the army and air force but higher standards are expected of nautical types.
There were two security incidents. Cops had to intervene to rescue somebody saying nasty things about HMQ. Badmouthing the Brits was one thing but being nasty to the Queen was another. While HMQ was in Wellington we got a package for her from London. I never knew why that went through British channels rather than NZ channels. The office car took me over to Government House. There is a two tier police system in NZ. You have traffic cops who deal with vehicular crime and regular cops who deal with anything else. There were 12 traffic cops at the gates of Government House and 6 regular cops. Behind them there were three soldiers from the NZ SAS. The Kiwi SAS differs from other SAS units in that they wear the maroon beret of the airborne forces not the sand coloured beret favoured by other SAS regiments. The kiwis did wear the standard winged dagger cap badge worn by all SAS units. What I found interesting was that two corporals carried automatic rifles while the one officer wore a sword and belt. Perhaps this was to kill the bad guys quietly so as not to upset the Queen. I delivered the package to the Queen’s Private Secretary who suggested I leave by the back gate. There was no security at all on the back gate
2001 was an important centenary for the Australians. They wanted to celebrate it style. They asked that we should stop the traffic for half an hour one afternoon mid week so some Australian dignitary could lay a wreath at the Cenotaph. Some idiot of an MP had to kick up a stink about that. I felt there were two relevant points. 1. Laying wreaths at the Cenotaph meant as much to us as it did to Australians. 2. If this was only a once in a century event then it seemed churlish to disoblige the Australians.
The Australian army sent a contingent of troops to stand guard over the Royal Palaces. I passed them once or twice. They were alert and looking for trouble. I could almost feel sorry for anybody who meddled with the Queen while these guys were on sentry duty.
Nothing is as it seems in Buckingham Palace. I remember being summoned to a conference at the billiard room in Buckingham Palace. I naively wondered if I might squeeze in a game if I asked nicely. It was not to be. They had moved out the billiard table and replaced it with a conference table; Chiz!
I always enjoyed the Christmas parties at Buckingham Palace. How I wish my mother had lived to read that sentence. They were held in the Palace Mews. Traditionally the “Mews” is the accommodation for horses and horse drawn vehicles. I assumed the party would be a barn dance or a hay ride; no such luck. It was just an ordinary room where people drank wind and nibbled canapés. In the event HMQ died of natural causes and at a great age. This indicates that the officers responsible for her safety were top of the range.
We went to Welham Green for the weekend. We wanted to see Rohan and I would take the day off to join in the anti Brexit protest in London. The protest was cancelled; which was a scunner. The good news was that I got to see more of Rohan. I may need to go south again in a few weeks when they decide to hold the delayed protest. Have you noticed that Monarch’s only die when there is a Tory government in office? What is the reason for that?
I don’t really think that Boris Johnson deserves more than one minute to reflect upon his legacy so I made several videos in less than one minute on this subject. In fact James O’Brien summed up the detail so well that I don’t feel i could better that. In summary we are talking about:
Broken promises on Brexit (It is NOT “DONE”, it will consume a lifetime of wasted time and money to continue the pretence). To read the full history, read Private Eyelines – Have I Got Fake Brexit News for EU and Reboot Britain – Strategies and skills to change minds on Europe and Brexit. Remainers and Rejoiners seriously need to up their skills if we are to win the next battle with the populists. Never forget that we lost two elections and a referendum, however inconvenient that fact is. Yesterday I delivered copies of these books to Sir Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and James O’Brien. I wish to send them to Hugh Grant next if anyone can help with this.
On Brexit, COVID and lies
Outright LIES on COVID (Johnson was late to the party when others were listening to experts. He conducted an experiment with genocide by placing infected NHS patients into care homes, causing 10’s of 1000’s of unnecessary deaths). The list goes on. These were political CHOICES and not inevitable. Johnson has been lying ever since he was born. Why would we expect any different from him?
On COVID, care homes and unnecessary deaths
On Brexit, Kettles and gold wallpaper
Industrial levels of distraction or dead cat politics, the latest one being the “kettle”. Even the kettle story is not correct. If you want your kettle to boil faster, descaling and using the correct amount of water will make bigger impacts on your bill. £20 is of course not even significant when compared with the actual energy price rises, but Johnson assumes that people cannot add up.
I don’t believe the Tories will call an election in order to lose their majority but if they do, we’ll need to do better than sharing memes on fb. The Daily Maul has set another dead cat loose on this subject today. Preparation is better than regret. Learn the skills to persuade people outside your bubble to change their voting behaviour here.
I don't believe the Tories will call an election in order to lose their majority but if they do, we'll need to do better than sharing memes on fb.
Preparation is better than regret.
Learn the skills to persuade people outside your bubble to change their voting behaviour here.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) September 3, 2022
Join us on Monday September 12 at 8 pm on ZOOM to build momentum to remove the Brexit beast from our lives and build a better Britain in a better Europe for a better World.
I had a chance encounter with a Labour Councillor the other day whilst at gay pride in Rochester. We know each other from many years back and I like and respect him as a solid campaigner for Remain within the Labour party. He approached me because he recognised me from behind, as I had my ‘offensive swimming bag’ with me, pictured below.
Brexit-Watchers
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he raised the issue of Labour’s strategy for Brexit. Here is what he told me:
“In our first term we will join EFTA.
In our second term we will have a referendum to rejoin the EU”.
He claimed that Kier Starmer could not argue about ending Brexit at this time, due to his need to hold on to red wall seats at an election. I dispute this position:
If Kier Starmer continues with the strategy of ‘making Brexit work’, he will be accused, quite rightly, of being a liar after being elected. This is the very thing that he has accused Boris Johnson and the Conservative party of doing and is therefore morally bankrupt.
Everyone knows that Starmer is a Remainer and therefore there would be no great loss if he were to remind us of this fact. Boris Johnson reminds Keir Starmer of his EU / Remain credentials on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in parliament, so there is very little currency in the Daily Excess, Son or Maul revealing this ‘secret’. Opinions about Brexit are changing rapidly, with Lord Sugar the latest person to call for Brexit to be reversed.
The Labour Party seem to be terrified of the right-wing media, yet they themselves have a media machine. Therefore, they ought to be able to put up a valid defence of his position if they needed to. The Labour party somehow believe that their own media machine is inferior to the Tory party’s. Perhaps Labour need to read my books as well.
My sense is that Keir Starmer is even more scared of the hard left element of his own party than the Conservatives and that this is driving his avoidance of the Brexit issue. You have gotta love Mick Lynch’s ability to stand up and speak truth to power, but let’s not forget that Lynch is also a relic of the militant tendency from the 1980’s in terms of his wish to shut the borders and return us to Little Britain via Brexit myopia.
Let’s suppose that Starmer decided to ignore the hard left in his party. It is indeed possible that he would lose some votes in red wall seats. Let’s guess that this may amount to 10% losses of seats in those areas. However he stands to gain anything like 20 to 40% of Conservative seats in other areas. Labour are allowing the militant tendency to dictate their strategy for re-election and this makes them no better than the bluekip Tories. I cannot recommend that any remainers vote for them under these circumstances, except where their candidates have a more enlightened view about Brexit.
My Councillor friend put it to me that Starmer simply cannot say the Brexit word at this time. Respectfully, I say this is horseshit. He can say that Brexit isn’t working and has not delivered what was on ‘the brochure’ in 2016. He can also point to clear evidence to support such statements at this time, coming from UK in a changing Europe and our own work at Reboot Britain. The Labour Party has fallen into the trap of believing that a poll in OK Magazine or the results of the latest focus group should dictate party policy. This is not leadership. Silence is assent and Starmer’s position is a clear demonstration of putting party before country, what Tony Blair describes as putting ideology before pragmatism. I expected better from a clever man and I must conclude that, like the Tories, there are people who they are afraid of behind the scenes.
As regards Labour’s long-term plan, there are many flaws with this:
The EFTA countries are a small club of nations: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who value collaboration over competition. It is unclear as to how such a club would wish to invite an aggressive competitor with a track record for wanting ‘cake and eat it too’ from its relationships with other trading partners. Brexit Britain has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for the role of international law, breaking deals made with others and riding roughshod over nations that it considers to be inferior to itself. These are hardly the kinds of elements of a compelling psychological contract to join a new trading bloc. Joining EFTA also means accepting the four freedoms of the EU. How will this be put to the knuckle dragging red wall Brexiteers?
The assumption of a second term in office is also questionable, particularly if it becomes apparent that Starmer lied to get into power. This makes him equivalent to Johnson and the mainstream media would certainly weaponise this. The second doubtful assumption is that another referendum would be desirable or indeed practical. Brexit has divided the nation and I very much doubt that the nation will look back on 2016 and want to repeat the exercise with all that it has brought. It is entirely possible that, by this time, many people will have forgotten most of what Michael Gove glibly called ‘bumps in the road’ and will not wish to open up the debate again. The longer we leave this question, the more difficult it becomes, as divergence will be complete and the damage to lives and livelihoods will be complete.
My friend assumed that the binary ping-pong politics model remain resilient into the future. This itself is questionable. Brexit has of course unleashed a disruptive influence on British politics, with a number of parties now standing for anything but the current system. Within the next few years we will see the emergence of Gina Miller’s True and Fair party, the possible resurgence of the Lib Dems in the South, the departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom and the emergence of other single-issue parties such as the Rejoin party. Under such circumstances, I’m doubtful as to whether ping-pong politics will remain the norm. My friend tried to deal with this with me by saying that if I didn’t vote Labour I would get the Tories. My reply was simple. I stated that I cannot vote for a Brexit party and that Labour must do better than this.
I am not sure whether the Labour strategy was given to my labour councillor friend in order to appease him or for him to use to appease me. Although miracles are sometimes possible, the strategy he presented has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese banned by Liz Truss. He is a very good chap and I wanted to believe him. But I ended up with the feeling that he himself may well be hanging onto unicorns and trying to ‘believe harder’.
The recent news that Trump is under investigation is yet another point on the curve towards improved world leadership. To misquote the band name : Populism will eat itself !
In world that needs collaborative leadership to face complex problems such as climate change, famine, war, migration and so on, we seem to have opted for more didactic leaders with catchy but meaningless slogans. In the UK we have Brexit populism. In the US we have Trump’s version of isolationist politics, and so on.
This is why I coined the phrase ‘Brexorcism’ to change minds in the UK about Brexit. The skills involved are just as applicable in other theatres of populism.
Last week, I was asked to speak on the need to turn back from populism and discuss the contributions from psychology, sociology and therapeutic approaches to wake people up to more long-term and global outlooks on our politics. You can view the masterclass below.
I also spoke on the role of satire, humour and catharsis as a way into the most closed minds on political issues, based on our book Private Eyelines.
To get hold of the books ‘Reboot Britain’ and ‘Private Eyelines’ please go to Rage Against The Brexit Machine or write direct to me at reboot@brexitrage.com
Whilst shopping in Tesco yesterday, a man approached me and whispered in my ear “I love your T-Shirt”, almost as if he dare not say the word Brexit in public !! Given this Twitter thread below, part of me understands his reticence. Yet we must not allow Brexit to be airbrushed out of the lexicon by the Tories. This is why I wrote three books on Brexit. Check the books out on ETSY. Our latest edition of Reboot Parliament explains more. Watch it below:
Update on "our Ken" – the ex Met Police officer who sent a threatening letter, placed rubbish in the garden, then escalated to spray painting the property and wielding a knife. His complaint? Having anti Brexit stickers on my dustbing pic.twitter.com/asKcOuKMXd
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) August 7, 2022
“Actually it’s 178 x more but I’m a Tory and I lied”
As Liz Truss becomes more desperate to win the election, her measures become more desperate. But the Janusian confusion in “Trussian” thinking continues. The key question is “Do you trust Truss?” We depicted the question in the Queen song “Now I’m here” in the attached video “The Two Minds of Liz Truss”. Famously, Freddie Mercury sings “Now I’m here” from one side of the stereo field and “Now I’m there” from the other side. Truss is all over the place – even surround sound could not cover Truss’ ever changing moods !!
We made the video to leaven Truss’ chances of winning. A Prime Minister with no real majority will find it hard to enact radical policies and the ideal ironic election result would be 52 : 48.
Available to order direct from ebay – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
Extract from the book Private Eyelines. Britain officially slid into what looks like an L-Shaped recession today (L stands for LONG). Whilst Corona undoubtedly provided the tipping point into recession, we must also look longer into the past for the underlying reasons. The FTreports that UK is the worst performing nation in Europe regarding our decline into recession under Corona. Brexit must therefore be added in terms of how deep and rapid our plunge into recession has been. Brexit uncertainly has laid the table for our Britastrophe, making Britain especially vulnerable in terms of resilience. The term resilience is essentially our ability to ride out tough times. Longer term, adding a man made disaster in slow motion (Brexit) to the Corona crisis offers us a “Britastrophe“. We have to endure Corona, but we need not have Brexit.
In March 2020, we made some socio-economic and political forecasts about the coming 6 months. Prediction is largely a dangerous game, but it turns out we were mostly right. We would be very badly advised to add Brexit to our list of problems in 2021 under this analysis:
But here at Rage Against Brexit we look deeper at the underlying economics and today we can report that it seems that Britain’s problems have been caused by … cheese ….
Taking back control … of our Stilton
Liz Truss has made the protection of Stilton a red line in the Brexit talks with Japan. In case you are not familiar, Truss is a massive defender of cheese and has made it her personal mission to defend her “blue veins” against what she considers the “yellow peril” in Brexit talks.
In case you are wondering about the benefits of the “Stilton Clause” as it is referred to in Whitehall, here they are:
Our trade with Japan was worth £31.6 billion last year
The Stilton Wedge is worth £102 million
In case of doubt, a billion is more than a million – a lot more
70% of Japanese people are unable to eat Stilton due to lactose intolerance
Liz Truss: [furiously] “Tell the yellow midgets that they’d better start liking Stilton or they can make their fucking cars in their own country”
The easiest deal in history
You may well ask, why is Liz standing up for cheese? Well, it may have escaped your attention, but we have not done a significant trade deal since we “left” on January 31st, 2020, although we all know that Liam Fox said that getting trade deals was to be the easiest thing in history. Liz needs to bring in the bacon (and brie) pronto, so that we can say we did a better deal with Japan than the EU did … because Stilton is included. Makes sense, eh?
The Stilton Clause” is said to include unlimited supplies of Cheesy Wotsits in exchange for the ceremonial inclusion of a Torii at Cheddar Gorge and its use on premium brand Cheddar:
Moveable Feast
In other news, the much vaunted moveable barrier for the M20 gridlock in Kent promised for 31 December 2020 by Grant Shapps is not going to be ready until 2022. Shapps was heard to say that this would not be a problem, as we would improvise with wedges of cheese in the two year intervening period. Here is an artists’ impression of the SS (Stilton System) in action during the Brexit food shortages.
As Boris will say:
The British Government is crumbling
Sadly Corona, Flu and Flooding are natural phenomena. Brexit is a man-made disaster and we don’t need to add it to the Winter of Discontent. We must avoid a BRITASTROPHE.
Available to order direct from ebay – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
Find all our populist parodies at https://brexitrage.com/gutterpress
EXTRACT from the book Private Eyelines. I’ve noticed that everything is UP in the post-Brexit sunny uplands world. What could have possibly caused this?
Costs of children’s shoes are UP by 20% shortly. Jacob Rees-Mogg promised that shoe prices would plummet after Brexit. Oh dear, Jake was wrong.
Inflation in UK is UP at over 6%. This is exceptional.
Gas prices are UP by 54% In France they are UP by 4% France levied a windfall tax on energy companies using their own sovereign powers. In Brexit Britain our Brexit freedoms seem to have prevented this. How strange?
Hunger is UP.
Food bank usage in Britain is UP, but food bank donations are DOWN.
COVID cases are UP. This is preventing the NHS from treating people with other serious conditions.
DEATHS will be UP but Boris Johnson says that COVID is DOWN. Of course, he is WRONG.
Russian influence is UP.
Sunak’s tax dodging is UP. His holidays in California are UP. More sunny uplands.
Bullshit from the Go Home Office about the Ukrainian refugee settlement scheme is UP.
Queues on the M20 / M2 in Kent are UP. P&O Ferries are only in part to blame. Since we have no resilience in our port systems after Brexit, only a small knock is needed to bring the system to a standstill.
The Brexit IT system is UP the cack. This does not help, but the underlying cause of delays in Kent is Brexit and not the IT system per se. if we did not have Brexit we would not have the crappy IT system and we would not have gridlock in Kent.
Urination is Kent is up as drivers have no place to go (freedom of movement and urination).
National Insurance is UP.
Sea levels are UP.
Hospital parking fees are UP.
Looting is UP.
Tory ethics are DOWN.
Labour is UP.
Tax is UP.
The game is UP.
With thanks to all at Re-Boot Britain for this list. The sunny uplands can only increase. This list is an extract from Private Eyelines.
Available to order direct from ebay – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
Every cloud … This week, I had a serious accident when I was nearly run over and killed on my bicycle by an articulated lorry travelling at 50 mph. I was admitted to A&E and found to have a number of fractured bones in my lower back and in areas connected to the spine. I am presently recuperating. As is the way with such things, people tend to get in touch to find out how you are. My estranged sister was one of them and she was WhatsApping me on Thursday. I decided to break our arrangement of silence and called her by phone. I say estranged because I asked that she stop visiting for family teas some years ago after she said she and her husband voted for Brexit to “keep two million German rapists out of Tonbridge” and to “stop Sharia Law in Britain”. I found our conversation deeply depressing and cut ties for family gatherings as a result. We must still Brexorcise people if we are to move the dial – see Books to change minds, although my sister is not really part of my target market – she is beyond redemption. The phone conversation went something like this:
S: I’m only phoning up to find out how you are Peter. I’m not going to go on about my ailments.
ME: I thank her, explain briefly that I’m OK and answer questions about the accident. As expected this is followed by a full exposition of ‘her ailments’, which I allow, as she is quite old and it’s expected anyway as part of our normal conversation. I find out which pills she is on and so on and host of other unnecessary information. Still, that’s family for you.
S: I suppose you are really pleased today?
ME: Why?
S: Well, Boris going and all that? (she knows she should not bring the subject up but cannot help herself).
ME: No, not at all. (she is perplexed as she only sees issues as being binary off / on, in / out, yes / no decisions). I wait a bit and then continue: As you know changing the figurehead does not change the underlying problem which remains, in other words Brexit.
S (looking for an escape route): Well, I could not vote for Keir Starmer.
ME: What exactly is it that means you cannot vote for him? Nor can I by the way.
S: (long pause) er, um, well I don’t know really but it’s just a feeling (she reads The Daily Maul). I note that she is beginning to question her statement and let it go.
S: (after my embarrassingly long pause): Well, Boris is funny isn’t he?
ME: Yes, he is …. (long awkward pause), but being funny is not the most important thing if you are running the country …
S: (fumbling) Well, he did COVID well didn’t he.
ME: Er, yes if you think that 170 000 unnecessary deaths is good (long pause). You do realise that there were other choices and that this course of action was not inevitable? (long pause). S: Did you know that I’m a great grandmother? We continue with small talk.
A friend wondered why I continue to bother and in some ways she is right. My sister represents a small group of people for whom little will change in terms of their beliefs about Brexit. They do however offer an excellent practice arena for the larger swathe of people who now doubt the wisdom of Brexit. We must work on this group now that they are starting to question the lies they were sold about Brexit. In a relatively short intervention I was able to raise significant doubt about the following matters:
Remainers are not all Boris haters or ‘lefty losers’.
Keir Starmer has some competences to lead. My sister is of the view that Starmer represents communism in her binary world.
Entertainment is not a core leadership skill. Other qualities matter more. Johnson was good at the Olympics and could have possibly had a career presenting ‘It’s a kockout’. However these skills are insufficient to run the country.
Killing people unnecessarily is not something to be proud of.
Herd immunity was not the only choice to address COVID (Brexiteers love the modal operator of necessity – see the books for more information on linguistics).
We simply cannot change the outlook on Brexit unless we work outside the bubble. Read the books today and arm yourself to have these difficult conversations. Every cloud …
Available to order direct from ebay – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
