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Banana Republic

Written by a former Conservative Councillor from Tunbridge Wells.

“I didn’t leave the party. The party left me”

In last week’s article on negotiations with the EU we showed that it was  Johnson’s regime which had acted in bad faith up to now.  One aspect of the level playing field, state aid, needs to be looked at further. Here, negotiator Frost enlarges on his usual mantra about Britain being an independent country by insisting that it is therefore entitled to spend its own money as it wishes. But there are limits to this seemingly reasonable argument.

As individuals, we all have the  right to spend our  money as we wish. However, if we do so in a way that gives us unfair advantages over our neighbours and damages them, we should not expect favours from them in return and may face retaliation. 

In the case of state aid, Frost is actually demanding a more favourable position for Britain than we had as an EU member. 

This is not reasonable.

It does not represent the spirit of Britain in terms of fair play. It is more like Trump’s spoilt child approach.

Click on the image to view last week’s post.

As a member of the EU, we had freedom from tariffs and quotas and had access to the single market. In kind we were expected to comply with EU state aid rules. These ban state aid to attract investment (except in development areas). Now we are demanding these advantages plus the right to offer state aid without limit. This is a benefit which even member states are not allowed to grant to their firms. 

It is hardly surprising that this unreasonable demand is a sticking-point for the  EU.

Report MP’s for breaking international law using the letters and contact links at Stop Boris’ Junta.

Particularly, since the UK was the top recipient in the EU of overseas investment until very recently. This is no longer so, thanks to Brexit. It could be retrieved if negotiations were not blocked by the inept negotiation skills and the hubris of Frost and the rest of Johnson’s regime.

Instead, however, the Government proceeds with the Internal Market Bill. This contains clauses contrary to the EU Withdrawal Agreement, Johnson’s General Election promises on Brexit. The bill also breaks international law.

Well worth your time.

Tory MPs have deflected the issue by referring to a vague EU threat to block the sale of  British agricultural products within the EU. They claim:

“This would prevent the transfer of animal products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland under the Northern Ireland Protocol.”

However, no information has been given as to who made this threat, whether it has formal status and the forum in which it was made. Without such details, it is doubtful if this threat was ever made at all, given this government’s record of lies.

The real Boris Johnson

The Johnson regime also lists scenarios in which the Bill’s illegal provisions would be used. These assume bad faith or unreasonable actions by the EU, and are highly provocative and self-defeating. This game of chicken has provoked the expected reaction from any organisation who is threatened by criminals. In other words, the initiation of legal action against the UK for breaking international law.

Ursula von der Leyen speaks the truth

It is Britain, not the EU, which has acted in bad faith. We continue to do so, notably by the mere act of passing an illegal Bill through Parliament. 

Write to your MP. Ask them to suspend Brexit on Monday 5th October via Halt Brexit.

Adrian Ekins-Daukes plans to lead Re-Boot Britain in order to boot Tories out of Local Government in the 2021 elections.

Please support our ongoing journalism and other activism.

In case of doubt, Boris Johnson’s statement about bananas was a big fat LIE.

Brexit is bananas – not straight

Futurama – Shaping Britain’s future via the arts

We have exclusive use of The Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury in November on Tuesday November 17th from 6.30-8.30 pm. Futurama – Re-Boot Britain is a multi-media arts event on the future of Britain and the World for our children. “Futurama” covers a range of future based issues for our children:

  • Climate Change, XR and environment
  • Brexit, Populism and Pop Art
  • BLM, racism and xenophobia
  • Social change, the future of work and living with COVID

All these will be expressed through different artforms. This extraordinary event will be live streamed and captured on film, so it will live beyond the event itself via You Tube etc. To be in the audience, get your free ticket here. To present your work at Futurama read on.

Themes

Media

Join us at Futurama.

Art meets the melting iceberg of politics.

To pitch your idea please e-mail me at reboot@brexitrage.com. We expect good media coverage for this event on TV / Radio and in the newspapers / social media. The outputs will last for all time, so your work will gain global coverage.

We will stage an art exhibition in the foyer. We plan the use of digital art / photography exhibition as part of the backdrop to the event in the theatre.

The Gulbenkian Theatre.

Constraints

There is a limit of seven people to be on stage at any one time, five backstage. We will manage this via a comprehensive risk assessment.

We can have an audience of up to 100 people, socially distanced in the Gulbenkian Theatre. This includes performers and any video crew.

I require a professional pitch from people wishing to stage a performance so that I may include in our COVID risk assessment. This will include a thumbnail sketch of what you intend to do, how many people will be involved, how much time is needed and any special considerations you will need to execute your plan (equipment and so on).

Futurama – Reboot Britain comes early to Kent.

Don’t miss it …

Inspiration for your own performances follow:

The Festival Goers – Cold War Steve.
Diversity.
Music and Extinction.
Black Lives Matter and Musical Expression.

“If there ain’t no justice then there ain’t no peace” Prince

To Trump or Not to Trump

I am grateful to Cheryl Noti, New Jersey, USA for writing this excellent reflection on a troublesome conundrum of binary politics which seems to bedevil the world on both sides of the Atlantic. It turns out that Cheryl is a Trumpist but I decided to give her a platform.

We here in America are 33 days away from Election Day, 2020. Not normally significant, except for the fact the country seems to be made up of either those who hate Trump and will vote for anyone else, including a chimpanzee, or those who see Trump as the only real option to Make America Great Again.

There is NO in between.

Editor’s note: It is the same here in Britain with a two horse race between Johnson and Corbyn. Johnson and Brexit did not exactly win, but Corbyn and Brexit apathy lost. Now we live with the consequences.

2020, a year not to be repeated, has brought raging wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, a major pandemic that crippled the economy and forced us to wear masks and live like hermits, the race centric BLM movement, and last but not least the icing on the cake, an election with no real choice.

I, and others like me, have a difficult decision. Do we vote for the self-proclaimed bully, or the creepy old Grandpa who has seen better days?

With all the lies being flung and a media full of forked-tongued devils, it really is a tough call.

Four months ago, if asked would I vote for Trump, the answer would have been NO Way, NO How! His constant tweeting and childish behavior left me wondering could we stand another four years of this man?

Lou Reed often sums up the range of social problems that political leaders face.

As a registered Independent, with no allegiance to either party, I had pretty much bought into the mainstream media rhetoric and thought the choice was an easy one, simply vote along democratic party lines.

Things however changed when I became a “COVID 19 Hermit” with plenty of time to do some fact checking on both parties.  And what I found just did not add up.

I, like many others considered to be “The Silent Majority”,  those who refuse to buy into the BLM movement, and believe in supporting the police and military, have found ourselves questioning whether Trump could really be as bad as the mainstream media makes him out to be?

The media blamed everything on Trump including the COVID 19 virus. Silly me, I thought that was a China mess up. Well, if the media said it, then gosh it must be true!

Editor’s note: As a scientist, I would point out that Trump’s knowledge on science and the nature of wicked problems don’t impress me much. Regardless of the origins of COVID, the outcome of any situation is the result of leaders’ responses to the challenge. Both Trump and Johnson have undoubtedly contributed to many thousands of unnecessary deaths through their laissez faire approaches and scant disregard for experts:

COVID conscription

The problem for me, however, was the facts did not match the rhetoric. Trump was being praised by the Democratic governors in the Northeast, the center of the pandemic, for the outstanding job he and his administration did, yet the media mouthpieces still said he was doing a horrible job.

The left and the media even went so far as to call Trump a Xenophobe and racist for closing the border to China. 

Then the whole left back BLM movement and the media coverage really made me wonder if everything being said about Trump was a lie.

As the BLM movement and the so called “peaceful protesters” were burning cities across the U.S.,  tearing down statues and demanding we get rid of Aunt Jemima, the racist pancake syrup, the media continued to say these were all peaceful protests and again blamed Trump.

It seemed to me that the blame belonged with the radical left and the states and cities. What I, and others like me, began to see is a carefully-architected plan by the left to discredit Trump and his party.

They blamed Trump for stirring up the racial unrest and causing carnage, when in fact, it appeared the opposite was true. It appeared the left had unleashed a monster in BLM and was now unable or unwilling to control the problem.

As the rioting continued, I had to ask myself why wasn’t anyone stopping this? And why did the media and the Democratic party keep saying these were peaceful protesters? I saw with my own eyes the devastation occurring in NYC and Philadelphia. These were not peaceful protesters, and it was no longer about George Floyd, the man killed in Minneapolis, at the hands of the police. Something more sinister was going on.

The “race card” had been thrown by the Democratic party, who declared there was systemic racism throughout the country. BLM and the Democratic party declared all whites were privileged and racists, and we needed to be cleansed. For an organization that talked about ending racism, they seemed to be nothing but a bunch of racists who hated all whites and America.

Red, White and Blue.

I had to question how if we were such a racist country did Obama, a black man, get voted in as President not once, but for two terms? And why hadn’t Obama in his eight years and Biden in his 47 years in office done anything to end this systemic racism?

Editor’s note: I completely resonate on this point. It is said that Obama could not touch the issue as the first black President. Over here we have politicians now running scared from Brexit and outright racism as the far right take over our politics. Someone must stand up.

Something else did not add up. Where was all the money coming from to fund these riots? They were not grass roots. Instead, paid anarchists were being bussed from city to city to wreak havoc and burn down American cities. And why was the left not decrying the destruction of our cities? They seemed to be cheering these anarchists on.

Wow, could I get behind a party that did not believe in law and order? This was so not the party my parents supported. It seemed to have moved so far off center that the party was now being called the party of the radical left and their supporters were referred to as the “Libotards”.

Seemed like the mainstream media was not really telling us the truth about anything. I felt like a sheep going to slaughter.

To Trump or Not to Trump? All indicators seem to be pointing to the right, but to be fair to all involved, I need to wait and see the debates before casting my vote. 

Gardening shoes on …

I sit here knowing my last thread of hope for any clarity will come from the soon-to-be televised presidential debates. Would I be swayed by smooth-talking Joe Biden, or would I become a member of the “Silent Majority” who supported Trump and believed in law and order? Only time will tell.

Editor’s notes: This post perfectly sums up the dilemma of voters confounded by fake news on all sides of political debates and the terror of being caught in a binary trap of A or B, Black, or White, On or Off, Yes or No etc. when most issues in life are analogue rather than digital in nature. We need total reform of our politics and political systems and this is why I started Re-Boot Britain. We will have some exciting news on this front shortly. Meanwhile:

Report MP’s for breaking international law

Oh yes, and listen to Lou Reed for some home truths from NYC:

Strawman.
My contribution to the debate written in 2016.
Video by Mark Duffy.

Whatever it takes

Rishi Sunak’s promise of “whatever it takes” ran out yesterday when he suggested that musicians were pointless in a post-COVID society. As someone who bridges the arts and business I find Sunak’s suggestion faintly ridiculous. If musicians, actors, artists et al. are pointless, we may as well also condemn people working in restaurants, nail bars, tattoo parlours etc. The Artful Dodger Sunak is morally bankrupt. Although Sunak retracted the statement, this is the way of our Government, to gaslight the public by making a statement and then take it back. In this case Sunak even deleted his tweet to cover his tracks.

Rishi understands the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I wrote a song for Dishy Rishi and Priti Patel to shine the light on the real issue that they are artfully dodging, that of a “Britastrophe“. Britastrophe is the toxic combination of Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster. All the while Brexit drags us under, we will never have the capacity or capability to adapt ourselves personally and in business to a post-COVID world.

I invite you to gift copies of the album to MP’s in order to prick their consciences to suspend Brexit in the wake of Corona – much more effective than signing a petition and something different. A sample letter is included on the Britastrophe album page and you can gift the songs via the link on the page. For now enjoy the video:

Bollywood BOJO.

This version is the “Balti Bojo Bonking Brexit Bhuna Bulldog Bhindi Bhaji Bhangra Beat MIX“. It synthesises the Raj, empire and colonialism in a slightly crazy cocktail, like all things that have emerged from this Government’s Brexit obsession. Of course we know that Boris, Rishi and Priti blame the people for the problems of Britastrophe, when it is they that are making the critical decisions on the future of Brexit Britain.

Free swimming pool with every donation.

There are six uniquely different versions of “Britastrophe” on the album to choose from, from the Carlos Santana “Salsa” Mix through to the Funkadelic inspired “Heaven and Hell” Mix. All proceeds to go towards security equipment for my family in the wake of recent threats of violence by angry Brexiteers in my area.

Take action

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Find out why Rejoining is a unicorn in the mid-long ter

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Britastrophe was conceived of in the bathroom.
Brexit and Russia

Anti-Conservative Tory Government

Boris Johnson is heading an Anti-Conservative Tory Government. Conservatives instinctively want to conserve, as the name implies, but this is an administration of destroyers. Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s senior adviser, is not even a member of the Tory party. He treats its elected representatives with contempt.

Anti-Conservative Tory Government now runs the country and nobody noticed or cared

Anti-Conservative Tory Government
Conservatives could not give a stuff about Scotland or NI

Munira Mirza, Mr Johnson’s head of policy, used to write for Living Marxism, the in-house magazine of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, had a picture of Vladimir Lenin on his office wall. 

These occupants of No 10 reject traditional Tory respect for continuity and compromise in favour of creative destruction. Their current targets are the BBC, the impartial civil service, and the judiciary, with our planning system. Further down the road, they plan to destroy local government.

Managerial capability and economic credibility have been thrown out of the window. This is most recently demonstrated by the extraordinary failure to report and then trace the contacts of almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases.  One Tory former cabinet minister robustly denounces the prime minister and his top team.

“I am a Conservative but we don’t have a Conservative government. Conservatives believe in parliament, they don’t try to bypass it, Conservatives believe in the rule of law, they don’t announce to the House of Commons and the world that they are going to break the law. Conservatives believe in the Union and in trying to hold on to the best aspects of diplomacy like the Good Friday agreement. This is a bad English nationalist government with no idea of where it’s going.”             

The Law Society have objected to Government breaking the law in the strongest of terms. So have The Bar Council.

Anti-Conservative Tory Government
Click on the image to read more

In all this the guiding hand of Cummings is clear. This over-powerful adviser has no respect for our Institutions, Parliament, the Constitution or the law itself. He has built a power base at the heart of Government which is beyond accountability.  His activities are not confined to “getting Brexit done”.  Our traditions and system of government are being undermined. A stench of corruption and cronyism is emanating from No 10.

Conservative MPs must act as they did following the 2017 general election. They told Theresa May to dispense with her advisors, Nicholas Timothy and Fiona Hill, or face a leadership challenge. In the interests of Britain’s democracy the same needs to be done now with Dominic Cummings and his gang of aides. If Johnson is unable to do without him, it is time for him to go too.

By Adrian Ekins-Daukes : Former Conservative Councillor

“I didn’t leave the Tory party. The Tory party left me”

Take Action

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Find out why Rejoining is a unicorn in the mid-long term.

Anti-Conservative Tory Government
Click the image to support our work
Not originally written about the Tory party by Tora Tora

Brexit Choices for a Better Britain

As negotiations reach another hiatus, it’s a good idea to remind people that Brexit is not inevitable now that less than 37% of people still think that Brexit is a good idea. Here are the Brexit Choices for a Better Britain open to us at the moment.

Brexit Choices for a Better Britain
By the way “probability” is perhaps better expressed as “betting odds” – the numbers do not add up to 100% of course

In case people don’t understand why the EU cannot just give the UK what they want, consider the EU as a golf club with 28 members. One does not want to pay the subscriptions but still wants to use the club for gala dinners, special events and demands a free set of golf clubs every year without paying. The head of the golf club must decline. If he says yes, he will face a backlash from the other 27 paying members who will also want a rebate or more services for less money. The primary job of an enterprise is to protect its members and, regardless of our belligerence in the talks, The EU must set this aside and protect the greater good of the union.

We also have an unlikely ally on our side in the form of Theresa May at the moment, who has rebelled on several occasions taking others with her:

“I might have thought the government would have abandoned algorithms by now.”

We also heard how the Tory party abandoned Conservatism last week.

In case of doubt as to how these evaluations were arrived at, please read the associated articles:

Suspend Brexit

The Rejoin Unicorn

Brexit Choices for a Broken Britain
Death is guaranteed

Take Action

Report MP’s for breaking international law.

Write to your MP and ask them to make Better Brexit Choices for a Better Britain, by opposing reckless behaviour by the Cabinet.

Brexit Choices for a Better Britain

Do or Die

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.

Professor Chris Witty told the Government that that the latest COVID rules will not be enough to contain the virus. 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.

Too Little, Too Late, pre-occupied with Brexit
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.

Bojona-20 - Putting the K in ILL
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.

Meanwhile £3 BILLION of your taxes has mysteriously disappeared on Government COVID contracts handed out to friends and cronies.

Hard facts on COVID + Brexit = Britastrophe

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:

Britastrophe

Happy now?

Do or Die Brexit in a ditch Johnson?

What are you waiting for?

Take Action

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Write to your MP and ask them to make Better Brexit Choices for a Better Britain, by opposing reckless behaviour by the Cabinet.

Snitch on MPs for breaking international law.

Do or Die Brexit

Populism will eat itself

More like this at Private Eyelines
The Son

Remember, the withdrawal agreement was a 2019 ELECTION PROMISE. It’s not even a year on and Johnson has broken his marriage vows, his election promises and caused at least 30 000 unnecessary deaths. Are you still happy about this?

Write to your MP and demand that Boris admits that he lied to win the election. Ask them to oppose Johnson’s reckless Brexit.

We are the dead : Bowie, Britain and Brexit

I have come to the conclusion that David Bowie caused Brexit. Somewhat outlandish you might say? Read on.

The thought first occurred to me when someone found out that Johnson and Cummings have a tombola machine full of David Bowie’s lyrics. They use this as a slogan generator during late night cocaine corona infested music sessions with David Bowie on the player in No 10 at volume 10.

The Brexit Tombola Machine

The latest Johnson COVID slogan comes from “Moonage Daydream” and illustrates the shameful practice of misappropriation of Bowie’s lyrics in a limited and specific way:

Moonage Daydream

It’s quite clear that Cummings got hands, face and space from this. Others have verified this point from Cummings reading of the song and books on superforecasting such as 1984 …

Then, from Ashes to Ashes, we find the phrase that won Johnson a landslide victory in the general election 2019 …

My mother said, get Brexit done
You’d better not mess with Major Dom

Lashes to Lashes – Priti Patel

The Thin White Duke even advised Johnson from his grave on the matter of singing English patriotic songs at the last night of the Proms giving us a foretaste of the Brexiteer riots to come:

“Rule Britannia is out of bounds” – Life on Mars

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy

I have it on good authority that the latest “Build, Build, Build” catchphrase came straight from Cummings mouth on the road to Barnard Castle to check his eyesight, on hearing “All the Madmen”, a song depicting “a world so bereft of reason that the last sane men are the ones in the asylums”. The dystopian vision fits the narrative of the Brexit condition under Boris Johnson. Build, Build, Build is clearly a cheap derivation of the confusing Bowie lyric “Zane, Zane, Zane” from “The Man Who Sold The World”. Somewhat strangely I have been performing this song at street events for the last four years since Brexit. Sorry David.

Ouvrez le chien

Cummings and Johnson have been playing Diamond Dogs on continuous loop since 2019 with their crack cocaine inspired Brexit. This album most perfectly describes the dystopian future or self harm, fear, loathing and blame that Brexit offers us if we chose this pathway.

Will you see that I’m scared and I’m lonely?
So I’ll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the centre of things
Where the knowing one says

I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands

I’d like to have your predictions as to where Cummings and Johnson will go next for a catchy slogan …

As long as there’s the Sun

Where are we now?

Check out Space Oddity performed at Parliament

From “Let’s Talk About BREX..it – a comprehensive guide to Brexorcism”

Dressing down for COVID

Britain has abandoned a £75 million plan to make vital items of reusable protective clothing to guard against a second wave of Covid-19. The plan had been drawn up in negotiations between the Cabinet Office  – responsible for key government policies – and industry after criticism in March that the government had failed to build up stocks of PPE. Shortages of gowns and related items in hospitals and care homes were widely blamed for the rapid early spread of the virus, leading to a high death rate of more than 41,000 (in all probablility more than double that due to changing the metrics and slippery accounting). which made the UK fifth-worst in the world,

As well as meeting NHS needs, the plan had two ambitious and beneficial goals:

  • To support the UK textile industry. Most protective garments are imported from low-cost nations. The millions of protective gowns for our health workers would have come from UK factories.
  • To reduce waste. Protective gowns are mostly discarded after one use, adding to the UK’s waste mountain. The gowns to be produced with new technology could be reused up to 100 times each.

In addition, a centralised UK programme would have ensured compliance with rigid quality standards which  cheap overseas suppliers have too often failed to meet. Orders for foreign gowns have proved to be sub-standard and unusable, causing unanticipated shortages. But 3 months of talks between industry and the Cabinet Office have ground to a halt after officials failed to agree the details of the scheme. The discussions ended after officials realised that, following protracted delays , many health trusts had placed their own local orders for gowns, reducing the need for the project. The Government has not announced the ending of the talks.

The cancellation of the project has been heavily criticised by industry.  Adam Mansell, chief executive of the UK Fashion & Textile Association, representing manufacturers, designers and suppliers, said:

“There had been a fantastic opportunity for the government to tap into Britain’s technical expertise on textiles to set up a sustainable supply of reusable gowns made in the UK. The way the government has handled this project has been poor and says little for its commitment to help UK manufacturing.” 

Yvette Ashby, chief executive of the Professional Clothing Industry Association Worldwide, added:

“The people working on this [in the Cabinet Office] appear to have little understanding of how the textile industry works. Their approach has sometimes appeared chaotic.”

Japanese textile maker Toray – which would have made most of the material for the project in a plant in Mansfield – said the Cabinet Office had been “slow and indecisive”. Had the government committed to the project, Toray said it would have been ready to increase investment in its UK plant. 

David Stevens, chief executive of the Textiles Services Association, representing laundries which would have recycled the gowns (by washing each one 40-100 times) said the plan would have made “a lot of sense from both an environmental and economic perspective”. 

Heathcoat Fabrics, with a big factory in Devon, said the failure of the talks was “a huge opportunity missed to not only eliminate any future supply issues but to also help the domestic textile industry at a time when jobs and unemployment are going to be a key issue”. 

Officials may have had problems with the  proposal to spread manufacturing  around the country,  preferring it to be concentrated in a few places. If so, this seems to be more a case of “Dressing Down” rather than “levelling up” poorer regions by Johnson’s Government, (where many of the UK textiles businesses are distributed).  But the main factor was that while the talks were dragging on – with no sign that officials were close to a decision – many of the over 200 individual health trusts around the UK opted not to wait for the outcome, but instead placed their own orders, to avoid being caught out again by a second wave of the pandemic. Cabinet Office officials failed to foresee this result of their dithering. This has enabled the major suppliers of gowns from overseas to continue to dominate a market which British industry could have reclaimed as its own,  The Cabinet Office under Dominic Cummings has failed to provide a sustainable and reliable supply of PPE  equipment, of sufficiently high standards to meet NHS needs and providing badly needed employment to our textile industry.

The responsibility for this debacle rests squarely on Cummings and his rabble of advisors imported into Number 10.

They are not competent to handle commercial affairs and should be debarred from any future involvement in COVID procurement activity.

Write to your MP with this article via WRITE TO THEM.