Boris Johnson has accused the EU of not negotiating seriously. As is often the case, where Johnson is concerned, the facts show the exact opposite. From the outset of the negotiations, there were three unproductive years during which Theresa May negotiated, mostly, not with the EU, but with the Brexiteer extremists in her own party. Johnson played a major part in ensuring that any deal that May drew up with the EU did not gain the support of the Tory right wing which she regarded as essential as a one nation Tory. Throughout this time, he ensured that it was Britain, not the EU, that wasted time rather than negotiating seriously.
Once he became prime minister, Johnson scrapped May’s proposed deal and instead negotiated with the EU a withdrawal agreement and a political declaration laying down agreed principles for a future free trade deal. (The withdrawal agreement has the status of an international treaty, binding in international law; the declaration is non-binding). This enabled him to gain sufficient support in the British Parliament to hold a general election. However, having achieved a substantial majority, he retracted his agreement to a major element in the political declaration, the level playing field which requites alignment of regulations in certain or areas – environment, workers conditions, tax and state aid. The level playing field is regarded by the EU as an essential condition for access to the tariff and quota-free single market. If Johnson had merely required some adjustment to aspects of one or more the areas concerned, this might have been negotiable, within the non-binding terms of the declaration. However, by reneging on the whole concept, regarded by the EU as an essential guarantee that free trade should also be fair, Johnson made it clear that he never intended to stand by the political declaration’s terms once it had served its purpose. That purpose was to fool opponents of No Deal in his own party and other parties into believing that he sincerely intended to strike a deal with the EU, so that they would cease blocking the general election. This is not the behaviour of a serious international negotiator or statesman.
All successful negotiations rely on trust
Johnson’s (or more likely Dominic Cummings) choice of negotiator, David Frost, is another indicator of their approach to the negotiations. Frost outlined his own views on trade policy early on when he said that:
“It’s possible to be political partner and economic competitor. Economic competition, between countries as between firms, boosts wealth for everybody in the long run …”
This approach fundamentally misunderstands business as much as it does politics. It leaves little room for alignment of regulations, as required in a level playing field. Frost has not said what sort of competitive practices he thinks countries might legitimately use under his concept of ‘wealth-creating’ competition. Perhaps they might be these:
This sort of free for all leads eventually to trade wars, as seen today between China and the United States. They create poverty for everyone, not wealth as Mr Frost claims. The appointment of a negotiator whose outlook leads to trade wars is not a serious approach to a free trade negotiation.
Behind bars
Johnson is trying to avoid blame for the inevitable catastrophe of No Deal if this occurs over the main unresolved issues of state aids and fish. That is why he is now, disgracefully, denouncing the Withdrawal Agreement, which he himself devised earlier this year and freely entered into. Comment on this, and on the unresolved issues, will be covered in next week’s issue.
Adrian Ekins-Daukes
Write to your MP – Ask Brexit to be suspended in the wake of international law breaking and the installation of a Junta in the UK
My dense but impressionable MP tweets this photo, commenting grandiloquently:
“THIS IS WHAT WE BELIEVE.”
I note that:
The Bible didn’t make it into the self-styled Christian libertarian’s shortlist;
Both Hayek and Popper warned against the dangers of fanaticism. If I were Steve – though a wise and benevolent Deity has deemed that I’m not – I’d read some Orwell too. And I’d remember that throughout history the best people haven’t believed: they’ve questioned.
Editor’s note: These are the underlying beliefs and driving forces that drove Brexit. Notions of taking back control and saving the NHS are cannon fodder designed to distract you. It is time to stand up and be counted. Enough is enough!!
Every day, people of all persuasions tell me “Brexit is done – we can do no more”. More than many, I understand just how wearing nearly five years of gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation is on the soul. But, in spite of it all, we can and we must:
Re-Boot Britain is a pan-political advocacy and lobbying network. Let’s restore humanity, humility, democracy and truth in politics to Britain. Nearly five years of lying, gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation gave us Brexit. Lets’s put the populist genie back in the bottle, by bettering the populists at their own wicked games:
* Reform politics towards representative democracy.
* Break the parliamentary paralysis that broke Britain.
* Take back control (sic) of populist media across our divided nations by making our case for a Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World
* Create mind-shifts to move popular opinion about Britain’s role in the world.
Brexit has consumed Britain : 3 elections, 3 Prime Ministers and 3 failed attempts to Brexit. It has left us weak and vulnerable in our response to COVID.
A political backbone has been absent in Britain for nearly five years and probably longer. The diverse and disparate Remain movements have sometimes gold-plated the strategy that lost them the referendum, albeit with the best of intentions. Various attempts to build cohesion and collaboration into our movement have failed, rather like one of the biggest silo-based monolith public sector organisations.
Yet we cannot allow the greatest disaster next to climate change to threaten the next generation’s futures to continue. Our continued resistance is both moral, a fight worth having and certainly not a waste of tiWatch the video below for a quick overview of the project:
Read more about the background to this in our paper “Brexit Futures“. Although the paper was published in January 2020 and is therefore out of date, much of what it says remains relevant, especially the second half, on the question of reforming our fragmented movement. The paper has been adopted by Grassroots for Europe and a number of other large pro EU institutions including the Federal Trust and Hendrik Klassens, the originator of the #FBPE hashtag.
The panic buying associated with the Corona outbreak gave us a sneak preview of what Brexit will look like. This is merely an hors d’ouevre for Britain, if we allow things to continue. As I write on Jan 04 2021, people are beginning to work out the impact of our thin deal via companies who are refusing to supply UK with goods and services, problems with Amazon / ebay etc.
THE WHY : OUR AIMS
THE HOW – STRATEGY
We are building a full time professional advocacy movement with the aim of breaking the deadlock of our “dead cat” politics:
1. Breaking Parliamentary Paralysis – via lobbying MPs using a variety of means.
2. “Taking Back Control” of populist media via press and media activity in national and local print / radio and TV media.
3. Develop much better reach into social media, in terms of honesty, depth of penetration and reach across Britain.
4. Changing minds on Brexit via 1:1 conversations and / or en masse via online leaders’ debates and other grassroots strategies.
HOW II – OUR ORGANISATION
We have a team-based network structure across Britain and Europe. What we cannot do ourselves, we do with others e.g. The European Movement, Grassroots for Europe, EU Flag Mafia, UKPEN and so on. We invite you to join one or more of these bubbles, giving consideration to your skills and will. We run weekly ZOOM meetings. Please drop me a message to join an induction meeting or one of our regular tactical meetings where we create campaigns and media.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We ask that you join us with a suggested donation of £10 per month or £100 pa for Silver membership. If you can spare more, please consider higher level donations of £25 pm / £250 pa or £50 pm / £500 pa. Or please just give what you can afford on an ad hoc basis. Everything helps.
Silver : Gives you basic early access to our daily stream of writing and media
Gold : Gain copies of our work in advance of release (books, music, media). Exclusive invites to our regular series of conference calls and seminars
Platinum : 1:1 coaching in the art and discipline of changing minds on Brexit plus all other benefits above
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Isn’t Brexit already done? A piece of paper was signed
We had our “Chamberlain moment” on 31.01.20 plus Boris Johnson some time spent in a gulag (fridge), finally getting Brexit done through using COVID and Christmas as a weapon to distract us from the realities of the “oven-ruined Brexit deal”. But Brexit is a political process and the law is merely a servant to the politicians. We now face a winter of discontent, as the realities start to bite. Anything is possible in such a climate, including the dramatic fragmentation of an 80 strong majority and / or the slow removal of the populist culture carriers from power, just as Trump has been leavened gradually. If you are not sure on the relative powers of politics versus the law, just think of ONE occasion when the Government obeyed the rule of law in the last five years, or other precedents. Here’s a few where they didn’t:
1. Gina Miller’s Supreme Court Case 2. The Cooper No Deal amendment – No Deal was deemed illegal, yet it was used in 2020 as a threat to secure Brexit 3. Pro-rogation of Parliament 4. The 6 million petition was ignored 5. Planning to break international law to get Brexit done 6. Allowing rapists to continue acting as MPs 7. Re-introduction of the death penalty, which threatens our trade agreement with the EU
… and so on. Our Government is beyond the law. We should not be so keen to give them excuses to continue doing this.
If political will changed, the law would be made to fit the circumstances and lawyers would spend years and earn a lot of money re-arranging the law to fit the circumstances.
Is it too late? We finalised things?
We have now exited the EU via a highly compressed timetable and limited scrutiny of the trade deal. Mark Francois has already declared that the fight for a hard Brexit will continue and negotiations will continue for many years as contradictions and conflicts emerge. We can use various legal devices such as Article 49 and or the formal review process built into the trade agreement. We live in a disruptive political climate with the toxic mixture of Corona + Brexit = Britastrophe and we have no idea whether Boris Johnson’s Government will survive the oncoming tsunami.
What will we do with the money?
We will hire a small organisation – A PA, fundraising team, professional web platform and so on. Also allocate up to 50% of the funds to support our full-time input. Voluntary activity is fine but we need full time professional help to be agile and able to react. I am prepared to set my work aside to do this but I also need to live. Of late we have had to install security and surveillance measures due to death threats and actual attacks on my property from angry people who claim that continuing to talk about Brexit is anti-democratic.
What is our organising structure?
Strategy and Leadership team – Members of this team are established strategists and people who can lead and manage others. All leaders of the other teams are automatically part of this team and we invite people from other Remain / Rejoin organisations for collaboration purposes.
Fundraising team – Members of this team understand how to raise funds for a cause or are willing and able to amplify the efforts of the leader of the fundraising team.
Social media amplification team – We need a team of people who have time to give across the major social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. either in content generation or pure amplification of our social media footprint. Our ABV (Anti-Brexit Virus) Super Spreader networks are already established on Facebook and Twitter. Our real enemy is not Corona, it is the populist politics that offer “easy answers” to complex problems.
Mainstream media team – Members of this team write great letters, articles and / or conduct credible interviews with MSM across print, radio and television. You may be members of the public with media skills, business leaders, political pundits, journalists, celebrities and so on. We must punch above our weight in MSM using colourful material with gravitas added.
People, Parliament and Power team – You will likely possess skills of influence and persuasion, both in terms of positive advocacy and possibly the “dark side of the force” e.g. Machiavellian and Sun Tzu type strategies to deal with opponents. European Movements liaison team – Our strength is the extent to which we are able to operate as ‘boundary crossers’ to minimise the silo-based structure of Remain. You will be an avid and capable networker, able to gain co-operation from the main organisations.
Scotland, Ireland, Wales and The EU team – Brexit means that there will be significant moves towards independent nations and regions of the UK. We will support local elections and other activities to help others gain independence. You may live in England. Website and media production team – We’re looking for people with skills to upgrade the website and produce video and other media.
Events team – Working with other national groups such as EU Flag Mafia, Grassroots for Europe, we support other grassroots groups in delivering impactful events. We have already staged a Festival of Brexit and other events and plan more. Administration team – We are looking for a team to assist our professional PA to smooth communication and co-ordination. We plan a weekly briefing to members and our networks to help bridge the many silos in the Remain organisation.
Holding Brexit to account team – Essentially, you will be a good analyst and someone who can interrogate data and convert it into powerful information via reports and other media.
Oh, no, not another anti Brexit movement?
Our difference comes from the fact that we will be more direct than professional politicians, outsmarting Nigel Farage et al. at their own wicked games. We will also rely more on professionals in their field rather than volunteers. This will give us the edge in terms of responsiveness and agility. At the same time we will collaborate with other pro EU and anti-Brexit groups across the board, acting to amplify their efforts. Despite best efforts of the many local grass roots EU organisations and various central quangos which have now folded, much of our work has suffered from “initiative constipation” – see Brexit Futures for more insights on this. In brief:
* We collaborate with the major national and international Remain movements.
* We have no party politics but work with people across parties.
* We allocate full-time professional effort to our organisation. Voluntary effort alone, whilst welcome, has not given us sufficient energy, agility and focus.
When I was five years old, I wanted to be in The Beatles, but all the jobs were taken … By the age of 12, I wanted to be a scientist and I became one. At the age of 18 I took a job with a philanthropic pharmaceutical company, working around the world and developing the first human insulin, novel medicines for herpes and to bring the first HIV / AIDS treatment to the world in record time. This means that I bring a scientific mind, curiosity and rigour to your enterprise.
By the age of 30 I had developed an interest in business leadership and began teaching MBA programmes, having completed 3.5 degrees myself. At 34, I took myself out of a paid job and, for the last 28 years, I have worked independently as a consultant, author and speaker with people at all levels all over the world, helping them to transform their enterprises. My clients seek to balance their passions, purposes and profit for a more responsible and sustainable form of capitalism in the 4th industrial age. I also help leaders digest what we call “wicked problems and opportunities”, in other words, the issues that keep them awake at night, using a unique mixture of divergent and convergent thinking skills. My 28 years of consultancy experience bring a wealth of expertise and wisdom to you, in enterprises as diverse as Unilever to the United Nations.
Along the way, I have written 12 books on leadership, innovation and creativity, gaining a prize for my work from Sir Richard Branson and various accolades from Professors Charles Handy, Adrian Furnham, Tom Peters et al. Over some 50 years, I have gradually combined my three passions of science, business and music into a potent mixture which reaches the head, heart and soul of your enterprise.
In combination, your enterprise benefits from rigour, analytics and curiosity due to my science and business background, plus the emotional intelligence, creativity and improvisation skills that come from my life as a music composer and producer. As a musician I have been privileged to interview world class musicians such as Roberta Flack, John Mayall, AC / DC, members of Prince’s ensembles, Queen’s production team and Meatloaf’s singing partners for their insights into leadership, innovation and success.
I am a passionate advocate for better politics and better business for a better world, fighting populist politicians and short-termism in our global affairs. I am an “HR” person, i.e. a “Hippy Realist”: green by ideals, but pragmatic by actions to change the world towards more sustainable behaviour.
Anti-Brexit activism
On terms of my work over the last five years, I have led the Rage Against The Brexit Machine project, having written three albums of anti-Brexit protest songs and got one of them to Number One on the Amazon chart. “Brexorcist in Chief” for Mid Kent 4 EU, I wrote a book on the subject of having difficult conversations with Leave voters from many thousands of hours of activity on the street, in cafes and bars. Out of all this time, on one occasion I gained two black eyes for misjudging an interaction with angry leave voters. I was also arrested by Essex Police for driving a Mini Cooper with “B*llocks to Brexit” on the side. They asked me to remove the signage on the hard shoulder of the M25. Sadly for Essex Police I called 999 to have the officer arrested. 250 000 Tweets later, Essex Police had to retreat with an apology for putting their lives and ours at risk. I should emphasise that the vast majority of our dealings with the Police and public have been cordial and uneventful.
I stood a stuffed cat in the 2019 General Election. Although the cat was only there to create tactical voting, to my surprise, Stan the Cat did not come last in the ratings, beating the Christian People’s Alliance who had been campaigning for 15 years with a budget !! Aside from the above sensationalism, I’ve managed to get our cause into the BBC, ITV, Sky, LBC and all major print media from The Guardian to The Express without ANY media agency or budget, just by using a professional approach. Whilst some Remainers consider me “underground”, my approach is much more effective than the blowhards in committees who simply watch things happen.
For nearly 5 years I have acted to dispel the illusions of Brexit. At 62 I am at some risk from Corona and consider that a fitting epitaph for my life would be the destruction of Brexit populism for the sake of future generations.
I need your help. Please write to YouTube. It’s not just for me. It’s about ALL of our rights to freedom of speech. As some of you will know I compose music and produce videos that speak truth to power on Brexit and our sleepwalk into fascism in Brexit Britain. I make no apology that some of them are “edgy”, reaching the parts that other people’s work do not. However, I do NOT use nudity, violence, drugs or pornography to make my point. As art reflects culture and our society slips deeper into sleaze, lies and cronyism, the means of my video production have followed this trend. It seems that I have upset the Conservative party and we believe that they set their bot farms on me recently. The result of this has been an outright ban of my material on YouTube. I use the site for my business activities as I don’t hide my day job from my activism. As a result I have lost some 15 years of work from the site with massive impact on my ability to continue working.
Please write to YouTube about the freedoms of speech issues that this raises (they only have a complaints channel so use that) and contact them on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social media channels. You will need this link to identify the channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs79-V9-2F36d2hjti4-p0Q If not for me, for future generations who will lose their rights to speak about human wrongs. You can begin here with this Twitter thread. Please retweet the whole of it, add people who care and reply to the tweets. An algorithm caused this to happen and they need to see the other side of the story. At the moment, I am still talking to robots at YouTube and we must break through to a human being.
Dear YouTube
I am a well-known activist against Britain's Brexit which undermines our children's rights freedoms and futures. Doubtless you will be aware of Brexit albeit from a distance. @YouTubeCreators@YouTube
— Re-Boot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 31, 2021
In case you are wondering about the “ITV Testicle”, here is the video “wot dun it”, with the testicle removed for Facebook:
Some good news. Here is the AC BC track that caused all the fuss. Download Whole Lotta Brexit to support our continuing work.
Click to download. Don’t just steal the music, buy it please
This is what I have already tried below. YouTube are extremely busy and so they use robots to make automated responses within minutes. It becomes clear that they don’t do any overall analysis of accounts during that time. We must reach a human being. My attack by Tory bot farms on YouTube is not just about the loss of a few satirical videos. All my business content over 15 years is there and this has effectively killed my business. Brexit really has broken my will to continue at this point.
YouTube appear to think that the words to La Marseillaise is full of nudity and sexual content – who knew?
Please help. In the words of The Manic Street Preachers:
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