This piece was first written in 2024. It’s still as relevant (perhaps more so) under the Brexit Labour Trump Government … The only good Brexit … is a dead Brexit … it has become painfully clear that Brexit has not delivered any of the so-called freedoms, nor solved any of Britain’s problems or opened up opportunities of equivalent or better value when compared with our previous membership of the ‘club’. Read Rejoin EU: Reboot Britain for more on this. Better still, mail copies of the book to MPs or support our project to do so.
Even the Financial Times find it necessary to court proven liars such as Matthew Elliot in their recent film on the subject. Elliot attempts to make the argument that Brexit has not delivered because our mainstream politicians are not willing to seize opportunities, but then fails to identify any. It’s a thinly disguised argument to invite the Brexit ultras to the table, and with it, full fat fascism to Little Britain. Watch the FT film at the end of this article. Before that, watch this two minute short piece which sums up what Brexit was really about. My film is devoid of academic references as these tend to need much more time, but the supporting facts and validation can be found at the accompanying article Populism will eat itself.
Music soundtrack by Peter Cook. Available on Bandcamp with all proceeds going towards our campaign.
Brexit has failed
The film has already produced a visceral reaction from a leave voter who has clearly been affected by the film’s dystopian machine-styled soundtrack (deliberate) and the speed / brevity of the messages. He appears to have been somewhat triggered by the experience, which is good. Sadly, ‘Alan the Hat’ has no collateral in terms of his own research, content etc. Nor does he have any followers on his You Tube channel. I aim to provide a good (free) service and admittedly packed a lot of text into two minutes. Alan clearly has problems reading big words and sentences that are more difficult than “the cat bit the dog”, so I have provided a summary of the points below so he may study them in greater detail.
Brexit in 2024 – a summary
Tory gaslighting on an industrial scale fuelled Brexit. It continues via a daily stream of dead cats to take people off the scent of Brexit. Examples incude the need to incarcerate legal migrants, identity politics, constant scandals etc.
Brexit delivered 4.5% GDP LOSS into perpetuity and a broken NHS which Boris Johnson promised to fix, with the fabled £350 million per week on the bus. Brexit has damaged our resilience as a nation and therefore our ability to settle strikes with public sector workers and so on. Growth is for the birds in such circumstances. We are once again the sick man of Europe.
Cost of living impacts have Brexit as a major contribution. Food inflation has reached 20% There are more to come once border checks come in later in 2024 … In the next 28 days we will see further inflation on goods imported from Europe and barriers to trade for exporters. See Brexit Inflation. The Brexiteers’ explanation of this is that Brussels are ‘punishing’ us. Get real, we are now no longer a member of the golf club hence there are associated costs and barriers. The Golf Club analogy I made in 2018 is prescient here:
We are now a third country. Membership had benefits.
Brexit has delivered broken businesses, broken promises, broken lives and broken livelihoods. It is not true to say that Brexit Breaks Britain as this implies that Brexit is done. It is not and I deliberately choose the phrase Brexit’s Breaking Britain as it is more accurate.
Brexit weaponised an increase in racial tension from Brexit extremists such as Patel, Braverman, Badenoch, Anderson, Gullis, Mordaunt, Mogg, Farage, Tice Truss et al. They are responsible for killing people seeking safety from warzones.
Brexit has meant broken promises to farmers, fishermen, police, teachers, social carers et al. As a small example, the British replacement for the Common Agricultural Policy does not compare in any way to what we had, faults and all. Listen to the farmer in the FT film below for more on his topic.
Perhaps one of the real reasons for Brexit is yet to materialise … ‘Singapore on Thames’ beckons, with the ‘sale of the century’ via SEZs and a return to a feudal society. If you want to understand what an SEZ is, read @EuropeanPowell’s explanation of what you are about to receive whilst you are being gaslit by tales of royal cancers and gender reassignment..
Extract from @EuropeanPowell’s work. Follow him on Twitter.
Brexit is not done per Boris Johnson’s lie of an ‘oven ready deal’. Impacts will continue for the next decade.
Liz Truss’ experiment in Brexonomics cost an uncool £70 billion and ruined young people’s hopes of home ownership in just 49 days. Just imagine what the Brexit hardcore could achieve.
Boris Johnson used COVID to literally ‘mask’ Brexit impacts … what I termed a ‘Britastrophe‘.
Johnson must have jumped for joy when COVID hit. It was an opportunity to kill 30 000 OAPs in care homes whilst operating as a mass distraction for ‘getting Brexit done’. Click the image for more on our Britastrophe.
Brexit means a loss of freedom of movement, student exchange scheme and more travel friction / costs. All of this is self inflicted as part of our so-called democratic referendum.
Both the Tories and Labour are presently engaged in distraction, distortion and dead cattery, in their attempts to erase the mistake of Brexit and secure votes. Brexit has so far claimed five Prime Ministers. It will also claim Keir Starmer.
Brexit will continue to break Britain unless we Join the EU anew. We can do this. The door remains open and even The Telegraph are now recommending it.
All the while, Labour are asleep at the wheel of Brexit misfortune. Keir Starmer cannot deliver his transformation without recovering our resilience.
‘Stop the boats’ has failed. It was yet another dead cat to channel people’s anger in the Daily Mail / Excess. In any case, better answers to migration are available. See our immigration algorithm.
The damage of Brexit is cumulative and much of it irreversible. Labour’s talk of rejoining from 2032 is therefore disingenuous and despicable.
We are essentially Sunakered. Listen to our dialogue with James O’Brien on this point.
Brexorcisms still needed
Do have a look at the FT film which overall gives a good coverage of the state of our Brexit nation. I am disappointed at the lack of fact checking of some of the statements by Matthew Elliot. Where the film falls short is in the area of leadership, preferring instead to look for incremental adjustments which will not address the elephant in the room. A few mealy mouthed journalists apologise for Keir Starmer’s “management by focus groups”. Peter Foster makes the error that, since nobody wants to talk about Brexit, it will go away as an issue dividing families. Perhaps he needs to study the psychology of ‘closure’ a bit more carefully. Sure, the word Brexit can be airbrushed out of public discourse and there has been a concerted effort by politicians on most sides to do so, but the ‘dark mark’ of Brexit will be left on society unless the issue is resolved. Resolution can come through a number of means and not just another referendum. As I said in 2019, “Let’s Talk About Brexit“, maybe the title of their film acknowledges this need. Martin Wolf comes out head and shoulders above the rest of the journos and politicos with an honest appraisal of the mess that we’re in. We do need to talk about Brexit. Conduct a Brexorcism today.
Worth 30 minutes of your time.
Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s Brexit in numbers from official Government figures and other trusted sources:
Some of our books. Click the image to check them out on Amazon.
We recently went to Dover to find out what people really think about Brexit. Most now realise that they were lied to and Brexit has not delivered on the promises from the 2016 ‘brochure’. Write to your MP to demand an end to Brexit carnage. Contrary to what people believe, Brexit is far from done and it’s possible to Rejoin if we apply enough pressure. The Rejoin Party are standing 11 candidates in the London Mayoral Election, in non-competitive seats under a proportional system, so it is possible to express your view without damaging Mayor. Watch our video account of the day:
The most insightful part of our day was not recorded, when we came upon the station staff at Dover Priory rail station. Three men and one woman. The woman was born and bred in the area, had a mining family from Shepherdswell, probably voted Labour originally, but voted for Boris in 2019 on the promise of stopping immigration. She planned to vote for Reform as she felt betrayed by the Tories. As usual she was resistant to questions about being lied to (time was very short for a decent Brexorcism) and said she did not care about future generations (again this is typical of the residual hardcore Brexiteer). Her colleagues were most amused as we asked questions and gently prodded her about her underlying xenophobia (one of the other station staff was black).
The popular view of Theresa May in the wake of her decision to stand down as an MP is ‘good riddance’. As always, I wish to put forward a more nuanced view. My title does not wish her dead by the way, just that she now has some peace from the swivel-headed loons on both sides of the Brexit debate. Here’s a few inconvenient facts for Remoaners and Brexiteers alike:
Sure, yes, May’s record at the Home Office was pretty terrible. The hostile environment and so on. Not as terrible as Patel, Braverman et al, but terrible. Then there was Windrush …
However, May appointed a 52:48 cabinet to respect the Brexit vote, whereas Johnson reduced the gene pool to far right nutters and sycophants. See my interview on the BBC for more on this point.
I spoke with Michel Barnier a little while back. He pointed out that May had two battles to fight. The one on Brexit and the bigger one of her own party fighting like cats in a sack. Eventually they killed her. Paul Witts nails the leadership difficulty in one pithy paragraph:
“The second most difficult thing in the world is to admit to someone that you made a mistake … that you were wrong. The most difficult thing in the world is to admit that to yourself. But as time and pandemics pass, an ever-growing number of people who voted for Brexit after being duped by dopes with red buses, are running out of other things to blame. They were promised the Nirvana of a “global Britain”. Slowly the reality is dawning, and that Nirvana is beginning to look like a scene from a gritty 1970s inner-city gangster movie … complete with outside toilets, spam fritters, rickets, and pints of warm brown ale with suspicious-looking white floaters, served in pubs with sticky carpets.” Paul Witts.
Although the only good Brexit remains (sic) a dead Brexit, Theresa May’s deal was the ‘high water mark’ of Brexit deals. Crucially it covered the economic relationship, security co-operation, cross-cutting issues and institutional arrangements that would preserve the future relationship. if you cannot now remember the details, see Institute for Government. Johnson systematically degraded May’s deal to get it through Parliament. He allowed no scrutiny of the deal using Christmas and COVID as a distraction and not even reading the contract himself. Rishi Sunak has quietly tried to restore elements of Theresa May’s deal through what I called a Pay as EU go rejoin strategy. However, ‘Logical incrementalism’ has many faults, as I pointed out in conversation with the BBC’s Jonty Bloom.
May fought her own party, saying that they would end up with no Brexit deal at all if they did not unite on more than one occasion. Mr Bullion is always on point (and pints) with points about strategy:
“My view was always that May was a fundamentally strategic establishment appointment in case Cameron lost the referendum. Hence her nickname the Submarine. My conclusion was that she was genuine and understood what was happening both to politics in general and her own party, but both Remain and Brexit ultras over played their hands, and the Brexit ultras played the Trump card.” Alan Bullion.
The illusion of control Johnson style – a fancy slogan but totally vacuous.
May did not indulge in public backstabbing of her own party. I’m pretty sure she was a tough opponent in the back rooms though.
May was socially inept. Yet, did you prefer Johnson, Truss or Sunak? What exactly is so wrong about being good at the strategy and details but rather less good at the presentation? Please write to me when you have found the perfect leader.
She was however rubbish at Grenfell and I’m not saying in any way that she was perfect before the attacks on my analysis begin.
I was shot down in flames when I suggested that Remainers should support Theresa in her last months as PM. I pointed out that we’d end up with Boris and a hard Brexit. Look what happened … ? !! The European Movement and other large Remoan groups were consumed by the visceral reactions of the mob. May stayed in the party when others fled. Can anyone imagine how hard that might be?
Theresa. You are not Mother Theresa. Nadine Dorries even pointed out that you are not a mother. However I feel you are owed some thanks for trying to hold back the tide of the swivel-headed Brexiteers.
Art imitates nature in all its beauty and ugliness. Gordon Coldwell’s fine work shows us the grim realities of Brexit. Find Gordon’s work at Gordon Coldwell. Here’s just a small sample of his work which includes a satirical book. The only benefit of Brexit is the level of satire that it has produced. See also Gutterpress, aimed at our populist media.
An uncool £74 billion blown in just 49 days of Brexonomics.
Gordon’s piece on The Truss perfectly encapsulates her own view of herself versus the chaos that surrounds her. The epitome of naked populism with zero substance.
Talking Heads.
Gordon says of himself and his satirical book:
When I was 16, in 1970, my secondary school art teacher took me to see an exhibition of work by the German anti-war artist, John Heartfield, at Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery, in the NE of England. The exhibition left a lifelong impact on my thinking about the importance of art as a means of communicating concerns about political developments that have the potential to lead to conflict and social unrest.
Approximately 50 years on from seeing that exhibition, it is still fresh in my memory – Heartfield’s works appeared as profound, apocalyptic and poster-like compositions.
During my career, I spent 30 years working in colleges: 20 years as a Lecturer and Head of Art, Design & Media and 10 years as a Marketing Manager. I left the education sector to start my own Branding & Marketing business – after 10 years, I closed the company due to being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
Since turning 60, I have been making artworks every day. My preoccupation is always concerned with the message/meaning of each image and the ongoing development of my own pictorial language.
Since 2016, the political landscape in the USA (re Trump), UK (re BREXIT) and elsewhere, seems to me to have undergone a significant shift to the right. Populist politicians strategically presenting contrived, accusative, provocative and distorted bite-sized phrases that are essentially emotive and manipulating. These messages are the essence of today’s ‘climate of political ideas’ and pander to a Nationalist appeal.
My response has and continues to be one of making artworks, often remaking and re-populating ‘Old Master’ compositions to present oblique and, at times, humorous or ambiguous comment on, for example, President Trump’s extremely odd, self-caricatured appearance and behaviour. His use of language, his spitefulness (…etc) all point to the potential for extreme outcomes… AND… the politicians responsible for the disharmony and fracture that is self-evident in the UK because of the whole BREXIT process, which could ultimately have a seriously damaging impact on the UK’s economy and social cohesion.
The parable of populism …
Naked populism
Find all Gordon’s work at www.coldwellandcoldwell.co.uk
One of the few remaining arguments of the last Brexiters on planet earth is that it’s too soon to review the benefits of Brexit in 2023. It isn’t. We have had nearly eight years of intention / formulation of Brexit strategy and nearly four years of Brexecution / implementation. Formative evaluation is therefore both possible and necessary. Let’s not forget that we were told that there would be no downsides to Brexit and we would have instant wins from our independence, in terms of ‘taking back control’ of our money, borders and laws. So, how is it all going? What does it mean to the man and woman on the street? Take a look back to my Linkedin article of July 2023 for a bit of nostalgia – Hard Facts about Hard Brexit. It gets worse every month. Header image by the genius Cold War Steve.
Money
On a simple basis, Brexit did not solve our abilities to take back control of our money. Brexit inflicted the Government’s own predictions – a 4.5% resilience shock to GDP or £100 BILLION per year. This is the equivalent to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete round your neck. Liz Truss’ experiment in Brexonomics added a whopping £74 BILLION in just 49 days, ruining young people’s dreams of home ownership for a generation. Read the Bloomberg report on decline in foreign investment in Brexit Britain. Whilst it is clear that nobody wants to talk about Brexit in 2023 due to radio silence by politicians on all sides, the ‘offspring’ of Brexit are all around us with the cost of living, food inflation and so on. All is depicted by our Brexit iceberg below. Government gaslighting continues with ‘pints of wine’ and other bollocks. Nobody of any intelligence is fooled by this shit. Are you?
The Brexit Iceberg – what’s visible and what’s hidden.
At a more parochial level and as an example of ‘taking back control of our money’, British energy prices in 2023 are 53% more than in France. Yet Gina Miller demonstrated that we have always had our sovereignty without needing to leave the EU. French energy companies are owned by the state and still make a profit at half the prices of British energy companies. When Boris Johnson said ‘take back control’ he forgot to mention WHO would be taking back that control. Clearly it was NOT the taxpayer or the great unwashed.
Longer term, we have only just begun to see the unfolding of a return to slavery in terms of minimum wages and an unwinding of employment standards in Brexit Britain. The drive towards the return to a feudal system continues with no opposition in sight. Read Red Brexit, Blue Brexit for insights into Labour’s failed Brexit strategy. Take a look at this You Tube video below, made earlier this year for insights into Brexonomics and numbers in general.
Clearly Brexit worked from the viewpoint that it discouraged Europeans from wanting to come to Britain. We could have achieved this quite simply by having a Government sponsored campaign of racial hatred in Britain, without needing to break the economy and destroy our reputation in the world as a standard bearer. Oh, wait a minute, we did that! You will notice from the graph below that migration figures from Europe are now in negative numbers. Yet migration from Africa, India and the Far East has increased dramatically.
As well as that, Brexit did not magic away our responsibilities to take in migrants from Hong Kong, Ukraine, Afghanistan and so on. Brexit has worked in exactly the opposite way to that predicted by the Brexiters. This is the perverse law of unintended consequences that arises from shoddy strategy. In short, fail to plan, plan to fail.
For clarity, Non-EU means people OUTSIDE the EU.
Inside the non-EU figures in the graph are people who came from Ukraine, the Hong Kong refugees and other effects, so the figure is temporarily high. Nonetheless, Brexit did not solve migration, nor will it. Britain also relies on foreign students as a source of income, many of who then return to their own countries, so it is all too simple to say that we must ban students. Our Government needs to maintain the illusion of ‘the enemy outside’ in order to win the votes of xenophobic Brits, racists and general shits in elections. Watch our You Tube video on how to address immigration.
Show this to anyone who voted for Brexit to reduce legal migration to the UK.
The red section is Freedom of Movement when the UK was inside the EU.
The yellow section, shows net migration to the UK since we left the EU, where have full control of our borders, where Boris… pic.twitter.com/bk3UI3vIEN
Before Brexit, small boats were not a thing really. The weaponisation of small boats was an invention by a Tory government desperate to distract people from thinking about the real issues facing an island nation with an increasing elderly population with food, skills and other resource insecurities. It is the triumph of marketing via right wing media to feed feeble minds and fill their minds with fury. Nearly every headline in the Mail and the Express has the word FURY in it. This is exactly why I wrote Private Eyelines to highlight how we are being taken for furious fools. In a parallel universe, in 2014 nobody gave a stuff about Europe or the EU. Again, EU fury was steadily manufactured to win a referendum based on lies.
Were you sold a pup when you were told that Brexit would allow us to take back control of our borders?
Laws
In the 14th century it may have been feasible to operate your own laws in your town, fiefdom, region or country as, generally speaking, world trade and travel were not a thing. In 2023, we live in a globally connected world and it becomes increasingly difficult to become a rogue state, unless you are Belarus or North Korea. if we wish to exploit people’s lives and livelihoods we are set on a course to become international pariahs rather than guardians of law and order. People still moan at me about the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as if it is part of the EU. It is not.
When people talk to me about taking back control of our laws, they often fail to mention which ones are troubling them. We don’t have to drive on the left hand side of the road as part of the EU, nor drink litres of beer. We are still free to conduct barbaric acts such as fox hunting as the Spanish have their bull fighting. We have pounds and the Queen on our money. Just what laws do the Brexiters mean when they claim that they want them back? The law exists to protect people from exploitation. We now see the bizarre spectacle of our Government arguing with the rule of law in order to exploit people or behave unethically.
This is not the high water mark of British justice and not my Brexit. Is it yours?
The boiling frog problem
I’m sure you know the story of the boiling frog. People tell me that “Brexit was done”. “It happened”. Sorry, Brexit was not an event, a newspaper headline or a project with an end point. It was a process. Michael Vail, a ‘farmer’ living in Brisbane, typifies the view that Brexit was an event on his Linkedin ravings. Sure there can be some winners and losers in all changes, such as in the field of disaster capitalism (Michael is a disaster capitalist cum estate agent) but, of course, Brexit was supposed to offer benefits for all not just for people who can play the financial system in the wake of a boom or bust.
Brexit hasn’t delivered the promised benefits except in the case of people who have exploited other people’s misery. I am not in a stage of grief. When someone points to the many benefits of Brexit, I will join the cause. It’s just that Michael and his few remaining Brexiters have nothing to show me socially, economically, politically, environmentally and so on for the positive impacts of Brexit nor any problems that Brexit solves. Read Brexit Freedoms.
Michael resorts to yin and yang rather than a lie on a bus to explain Brexit. I guess it’s a new take on “Que sera sera” which my Brexity sister favours. He also lies about the Cuty (city) who are quietly moving people out of London. It’s easy to say all this when you live in Australia.
In case you are still under any illusions that “Brexit is done”, please see this very long list of Brexit impacts still to come in 2024 – 2027 and beyond. from Edwin Hayward.
Here are just a few of the joys Brexit has in store for us in 2024 and beyond.
(Long tweet. Please expand. Sorry.)
== 1 January 2024 ==
Certain temporary aspects of the UK's trade deal with Canada fall away, such as the tariff-free quotas on cheese. Result? UK exporters face…
In Europe, they have agreed to use one charger to rule all our electronic devices. It means 🔌The same charger for all phones, tablets and cameras ⚡ Harmonised fast-charging technology 🔄Reduced e-waste
In Britain, we’re still talking pints. Soon, we will be introducing bakelite plugs. This brilliant video sums up the fact that Brexit and satire are now indistinguishable.
Don Adamson reports from the Brexit bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework:
One – Discuss the following statement: a so called ‘Independent’ firm of lawyers was called in to investigate the allegations that NatWest Bank treated Nigel Garbage badly. Unsurprisingly the so called ‘independent’ law firm found that Nat West’s treatment of Nigel Garbage was not to the required standard. What more proof does anybody need that the legal system in this country has been nobbled by neo Nazis? Perhaps decent people in this country should close their bank accounts and bank with Nat West instead.
Two – Crispin Blunt MP says he is confident that no charges will be brought against him in the matter of sex crime allegations. Is this because a) sex crimes have been punishment free in this country since 2010 b) the legal profession in this country has been nobbled by neo Nazis or c) both?
Rhymes with Crispin Blunt …
Three – Johnson has a new job: his own programme on GB News. No doubt some people will watch it. The Tories have wrecked the economy for the benefit of tax dodgers and other criminals. The newspapers in this country are owned by unscrupulous billionaires who have convinced the suckers that poverty is in their best interests. Keith Starmer’s one and only response is to have us believe that Labour can make Brexit and Tory austerity work. How much are Murdoch and Rothermere paying Starmer to say this?
Four – Some fascinating stuff is coming out of the inquiry in to the Covid pandemic. One Tory MP has been quoted as saying that Johnson was the wrong PM for Covid. In which unlikely parallel dimension would Johnson remotely resemble any kind of right PM?
Five – Discuss the following: In Harold MacMillan we had a Tory Prime Minister who was horrified when John Profumo told lies in Parliament. Why do we now have politicians who would be horrified if anybody spoke the truth in Parliament? When Profumo’s political career ended he redeemed himself by working for Toynbee Hall, a charity that exists to alleviate poverty in the East End of London. What is the possibility of 21st century politicians making any effort to redeem themselves?
… one example is defence … Brexit has seriously damaged that … Big projects were always a motor for positive Anglo-French relations.
Richy Scumbag’s plans to revitalise Euston
… of the thousands of dwellings built in Docklands only a handful were affordable by local residents … Regeneration of Battersea Power Station, Nine Elms and King’s Cross … have been characterised by inordinate delays and skyscrapers of apartments … sold to offshore investors … an odd template for a ‘levelling up’ project …
Bernie Ecclestone is the only high profile prosecution for hiding assets offshore
… Cameron government made it a criminal offence for tax evasion… not been deployed …
Boris Johnson took an undeclared £800,000
… loan facilitated by Richard Sharp before making Sharpe chairman of the BBC…
… drastically cutting back sports desk … not all cuts … recently advertised for a ‘sports betting correspondent … Never mind boring writing about sports when you can tell readers how to lose money betting on it … Maths clearly not the strong suit … ‘Poll stated PM trusted to protect rights of women … in fact the poll stated the exact opposite … poll also indicated that Mail readers blamed Johnson for the nation’s woes.
Job cuts at the Mail on Sunday
Big Pharma was a big presence at Labour conference , perhaps hoping a change of government may sweeten relationships and deals with NHS … if the NHS does not pay more it will force Pharma to reduce … R& D and manufacturing investment in UK …
Richy Scumbag’s wife, Akshata Murty vouched for her husband’s love for the UK
… without mentioning any such commitment on her own part … may have been down to her tax advisers … acknowledging the UK as her home may jeopardise any future ‘non dom’ claim … she gave up that status in 2022 but there was no promise not to use it again …
Starting on 29 October GB News will give viewers a break
… cranks conspiracists and Tory politicians … John Cleese’s 10 part … Dinosaur hour… I want to discuss ‘Woke issues’ but we could not get people on …
The Barclay Dynasty – a story of secrecy, survival and succession
…like a high end episode of East Enders … one side of the family bugs the conversations of the other … Fred’s wife divorces him … he pleads poverty and refused to hand over the cash ordered by the courts, daring the judge to send him to prison … avowedly impecunious … sunk £7.5 into suing his nephews over the bugging incident … for a measly return of £800,000 settlement … book reads as a history of the dodgier corners of the financial world over the last eight decades … emerged unscathed from the ensuing scandal with debts happily unpaid … Byzantine business structure .. Pay no tax … obsessive persecution of the people of Sark…
Pandemic Deaths
… England and Wales excess mortality of +26% …third highest Western Europe … 12 highest globally … BMA criticised government for … failure to provide an official, strong, independent public health presence … slowness to introduce proper PPE … Eat out to help out …drove up infections by between 8-17% … chopping and changing of ever more complex and confusing restrictions … clear by February 2020 that NHS would be overwhelmed.. Civil Servants and ministers aware of this … rising deaths in care homes … as patients were discharged from hospitals without testing … no testing or PPE for staff … basic infection control was so poor in hospitals and care homes that they had their own epidemics … Staff died alongside patients and still have long Covid …Cabinet turmoil was a key reason for dismal UK response to Covid … breaches of Covid rules by those in power destroyed public trust … government does not have the credibility needed … we look like a terrible, tragic joke ..Carrie Johnson appeared to be the real person in charge … Lee Cain, Johnson’s director of communications until November 2020 said ‘Carrie ‘does not know wtf she is talking about … don’t worry about Demonic Shortcummings Carrie is the real person in charge … Met police issued a further 24 referrals for Partygate fines after illegal party at Tory HQ on 14 December 2020 … bringing total fines to 150 … terrible mistake to open pubs while keeping schools shut … mental illness eating disorders, self harm and suicide all rose ..still high rates of absence from school and attainment gap widening … excess deaths remained high in 2023 … bodes ill for the coming winter … poor public health and long waiting times for treatment … increased alcohol consumption, worsening mental health …
I made this in March 2020 – we knew all this at the time.
Good news from Warsaw
… Poles turned out in record numbers to vote down populist- nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) Party … the result is a relief … PiS has installed handpicked judges … turned state broadcasters into megaphones for PiS propaganda … deployed its people to run state-run industries … building a patronage system … Poland won … Democracy won … PiS deployed state media and state owned companies stuffed with cronies to blitz the country with propaganda …
Brexit Referendumb begat four years of uncertainty followed by a trade deal that introduced friction to formerly frictionless borders
…. ruptured global supply chains … decision to leave … EU … presented serious difficulties … Bosses still grumble about uncertainty … the real risk was not that manufacturers would shut up shop but that future investment would go elsewhere … there is more to grumble about … policy stability is essential, yet the government has followed six different industrial strategies in the last decade … making even short term planning arduous …
Prisons are overcrowded because Tories demanded longer sentences without building more prisons
… most absurd example of a tactic increasingly deployed by… not willing to increase taxes to cover the cost of services voters demand … results are shortages, queues unpredictable rationing … Richy Scumbag cancelled the Manchester leg of HS2 railway … painted it as redistribution … money saved could be spent elsewhere .. it is fair to assume that few other schemes will materialise … most pernicious in housing … shortages have reached new highs … NHS waiting lists stand at 8m cases in a country of 56m people … Tories are allergic to high taxes but do not have the cojones to support market based solutions … miserable compromise … no way to run a country …
Tory Party Conference
… Northern delegates angry at Richy Scumbag … only Sue Ellen Braverman is less popular … every time she speaks a Tory seat loses 2,000 votes … makes me think of a cross between ‘Carry on up the Khyber’ and the Titanic … all of them know they are doomed … hard-line Tories don’t appeal to anybody any more, even their own children … Nigel Garbage at Disco with Priti Patel … there is a match made in Hades … Labour Party conference … Trying to be more British … Union flags … Tory should have next conference in Torquay at Fawlty Towers because there will be so few of them as MPs …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur (First Class)
Some of you will have seen the famous film “12 angry men”. If you have not here is the plot in a few words from the official film description. Following the closing arguments in a murder trial, 12 members of the jury must deliberate. A guilty verdict would mean death for the accused, an inner-city teen. As the dozen men try to reach a unanimous decision while sequestered in a room, one juror (Henry Fonda) casts considerable doubt on elements of the case. Personal issues soon rise to the surface, and conflict threatens to derail the delicate process that will decide one boy’s fate. Through the process of dialogue and analysis Fonda convinces his fellow jurors to acquit the teenager against all the odds. The parallel questions here must be:
“Why are the Tories so angry?”
and
“Can anyone heal their regrets?”
Who will heal their collective anger?
From far right to right :
1. Steve Baker
Self-confessed hardman of Brexit who went soft as his dream melted away and under pressure from the many people who said he was delusional. Baker said he hadn’t felt happy since the Brexit vote, never mind the people who had to suffer from its death wave. Baker recently said that the 2016 referendum should have had a mandatory 60% majority for it to be a settled matter. This is polite parlance for the fact that Brexit has failed and we can and must join the EU anew.
2. Nadine Dorries
Monkey testicle eating Dorries now falls into the category of a woman scorned, after falling in love with Boris Johnson and having that love denied. This coincided with Johnson giving an honour to a 29 year old woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bojo rather than ‘Lady’ Dorries. Nadine more or less went on strike, failing to attend Parliament or do her constituency work for an extended period. She is no more, having been voted out of her Mid Bedfordshire constituency. Anger is too polite a word to describe Ms Dorries. Even local dad and police commissioner could not save her solid Tory constituency from falling in the recent by-election.
3. Penny Morduant
PM (Penny Morduant not Prime Minister) in waiting, Penny is angry because she was overlooked in the search for a Prime Minister in 2022, having been passed over for Liz Truss. Penny decided it was best to hold a sword for an hour to demonstrate the relevant competences for being PM (Penny Morduant not Prime Minister). PM has the unusual accolade of claiming military credentials in the Royal Navy, although it seems that all her experience with seamen was acquired on dry land. Another angry Brexiteer with several grudges, a sword and a desire to stand up and fight …
4. Douglas Ross
Scottish Conservatives leader. Yes it’s hard being a Conservative in Scotland as virtually everyone swears at you but Douggie has other reasons to be angry as well. Boris Johnson swore at him when Doug voted for Johnson to resign in 2022. Doug shouted Deputy First Minister of Scotland Shona Ross down when she called on Rishi Sunak to meet his commitments for net zero instead of watering them down. This is one of his regular behaviours in the Scottish Parliament. Don’t be like Doug.
5. Priti Patel
Priit Patel was once hailed as the most extreme Home Secretary of all time. Priti is angry because Suella Braverman has made her look like a member of the Cats’ Protection League when compared with Suella’s full fat Nazi style celebration of children drowning in small boats. One of the most vicious ‘immigrants turned racist’ in the Tory party, Priti remains popular due to her loyalty to Boris Johnson. Known for shouting and bullying staff, Priti waits in the wings ready to pounce on Rishi when the time is right. Check our remake of “Priti Woman” which satirises some of her most famous quotes. PG rated due to Matt Hancock in leg irons.
6. Liz Truss
What can one say? The woman who broke Britain with her version of hard Brexit economics in just 49 days with her partner in grime Kwasi Kwarteng. The cost of ‘Trussonomics‘ was an eye watering £60 billion, only eclipsed by the ongoing cost of Brexit which stands at £100 billion EVERY year. As if all this was not bad enough, Liz is undeterred and plans a comeback, saying that her wilful destruction of the country was “not understood by the markets”. The Truss has had some public speaking training recently. Since people are easily fooled by a slick presentation over content (see also Johnson for style over substance), we should be very afraid. Although The Truss started life as an anti-monarchist woke lefty liberal, she has now ‘manned up’ in support of cheese, Norfolk turkeys and the British apple. A stint on ‘Bakeoff’ seems more appropriate. Our song “more than enough” sums up The Truss well. Watch the video and buy the albums to support our independent journalism.
Download the albums via https://academy-of-rock.bandcamp.com/
7. Boris Johnson
There are not enough column inches or time at the COVID enquiry to describe this man’s impact and catastrophic demise from his imposter position as PM. He said that Brexit could be microwaved when it was already burned. Brexit has given us a 4.5% hit to UK resilience. This is the equivalent of trying to swim the English Channel with a block of concrete around your neck. Johnson killed up to 40 000 vulnerable people through dither and delay and making decisions that were against the science. He allowed his mates to profit from COVID, even encouraged it. Eventually his party chums turned against him and he more or less had to be forcibly removed from No 10 Downing Street. Johnson’s attempted comeback was resisted by his party colleagues. He has now reversed into GB News so that he can snipe at Rishi Sunak from the sidelines.
8. Jacob Rees-Mogg
Having lined his pockets from Brexit, lied to the Queen and then reversed into being a paid hack for GB News, Jacob resigned from his position. This was probably because he regretted the reverse takeover of the British Empire by the Indians. Mogg is one of the few politicians who continues to stand by Brexit which he claims will offer immense opportunities sometime into the 23rdCentury. Privately I suspect he is much less happy about the lack of divergence from EU laws 98% of which we helped to make. He will also be spooked by the paltry returns on our trade deals which are effectively ‘fire sales’ in our desperation to point to something positive about Brexit (See also Kemi Badenoch and CPTPP). This film is from 2018 when we ambushed Jake at BBC Question Time.
9. Suella Braverman
As stated previously, Suella has made Priti Patel look like Mother Theresa with her full fat fascist agenda to feed a few remaining gammon voters with live immigrant children. Braverman has recently tried to put thought crime on the statute book, by suggesting that anyone who uses the word Jihad on the street is a terrorist. Even Tory peer Baroness Warsi was moved to criticise Suella by pointing out that divide and rule tactics are themselves the tools of hate. Not content with trying to kill migrants on dangerous disease ridden prison ships and breaking international law, I imagine that Suella must have said “thank you God” when the Israeli – Palestinian conflict started. She has been quick to use the war to weaponise her own domestic agendas. It’s even more surprising as Braverman is herself a barrister at No 5 Silk Chambers (better suited to being a barrista). As most observers have stated, Suella’s bizarrely disturbed outlook on foreigners is probably rooted in some very dark experiences in childhood.
I had trouble deciding if Robert Jenrick or Lee Anderson ought to be part of our 12 angry Tories.
10. Richard Tice
Of course Tice is not a Tory, just a pound shop racist. Tice recently turned his hatred on Sadiq Kkan and ULEZ in a desperate move to find a new issue to enrage people with feeble minds. Nigel Farage is also searching for things to trigger his remaining following from Gammon Brexit (GB) News. Tice remains angry that he has not got the Brexit he wanted. But he still cannot describe the one he was looking for … No wonder Steve Baker is effectively saying that the referendum should be declared null and void. Tice is angry with the Tory party for being more fascist than his Brexit party aka Reframe UK.
11. Kemi Badenoch
Another PM hopeful, Badenoch has the dubious credentials of having done some of the most worthless Brexit trade deals on the planet via the CPTPP deal (worth 1/50th of what we had in the EU over 10 years at best and pushed through Parliament without a referendum). Although she was appointed by Truss, I suspect that this was Liz acting ‘to keep one’s enemies close’, as Badenoch is also popular with the Tory membership. Rishi has also kept her close, possibly because her nuclear levels of incompetence make Sunak look good. Incidentally, Badenoch stated that the CPTPP deal will only produce any benefit if we use it. So she’s already getting ready to say that the people thwarted her pathetic CPTPP deal.
No 12?
By this time, you may have worked out that there were only 11 angry people in the picture. So who is no 12? – Lee Anderson, Jonathan Gullis, Gove, Iain Duncan-Smith, Mark Francois, Esther McVey, Dehenna Davison, Liam Fox, Keegan, Coffey, Harper, Steve Barclay, the Tory rapists? There are so many to choose from. Usually a threat from outside is the stimulus for unity. Can Keir Starmer provide that threat? I think not since I find it increasingly difficult to find differences on policy between Labour and The Tories in many areas.
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.
Our front page of today’s Telegravda covers some of the main stories from the CPC 2023 (Conservative Party Chaos 2023). Yet another Tory donor, Richard Walker, CEO of Iceland, has resigned, stating that the Conservative party does not conserve. Doubtless another tree will be felled or a bully dog scandal be started to distract a public punch drunk by Brexit chaos, cost of living crisis, energy prices, NHS vandalism, pension triple lock, sending women and gays to Rwanda etc. As always I find it essential with these satirical front pages to produce a fact and fiction decoder below, as some people no longer understand the difference between Tory lies and real life. If you enjoy this satirical edition, you will love our book Private Eyelines. Find it here.
Click to read Private Eyelines.
FACT : GB News has the dubious accolade of being the so called news channel with the most fake news. Endorsed by Liz Truss today, surely the kiss of death. Here are six ways you can boycott fake GB News.
FAKE NEWS – Therese Coffey to ban the non-existent bendy banana EU regulation !! Praise the Lord.
FACT : Lee Anderson presents as a journalist on GB News but interviews Tory politicians. This is quite unacceptable but OFCOM have no teeth to deal with this gross abuse of power. GB News is thus a 24/7 Tory party campaigning platform and not a news channel. 30p Lee interviewed Suella Braveman after she attended a far right rally in the USA. Watch Led by Donkeys’ sting operation on the underground story of Suella’s wicked games. She should be jailed for this as a bare minimum.
FACT : Braverman has blamed women and gays for illegal immigration when the numbers do not support her random claims. Even a bunch of senior Tory MPs and some ministers have denounced her for her statement demonising women and LGBTQ people.
FICTION : No boxing matches are planned at the Tory Party Conference in Manchester, but the Tories are fighting like cats in a sack as the party takes their final breaths. On the other hand Liz Truss did her levelling up best to put more nails in Rishi Sunak’s coffin.
FICTION : The Rev Awdry has not taken on the contract to deliver HS2 (Hysterical Sunak II), nor has Ringo Starr locked Rishi Sunak in a tunnel. Nor has Thomas the Tank engine applied to Suella Braverman for gender reassignment …
I think the Tories deserve their fate, don’t you?
FACT : Rishi Sunak’s Meat Tax is FICTION. Liz Truss is not saving British beef, pork or bully sausage dogs. She is however on patrol to get the top job again. It’s unbelievable as she broke the economy after her 46 days in office. But, of course, The Truss is undeterred by this catastrophe. This is the power of the Brexit unicorns on Tory hopefuls. Badenoch and Morduant are also on manoeuvres at the Conservative Party Conference alongside Priti Patel who still seeks revenge on Sunak. Meanwhile Sunak desperately tries to fight his ground using the same arguments about Brexit freedoms by trying to become the motorist’s friend on potholes and speed bumps.
Tory party policy is to fill the news with not just a stream of dead cats, but a veritable tsunami of them. Lies about meat taxes, dustbins and so on. And it was only a couple of weeks ago when RAAC was occupying the headlines. They rely on the speed of the news feed to never get held to account for their sins. Don’t let them get away with it. Keep on reminding them of ‘unfinished business’. And don’t forget that Brexit is at the root of many of these problems and lies.
Just two weeks on and airbrushed from mainstream media …
This article in The Guardian is being shared widely by Rejoiners at the moment. It is a good piece of academic analysis. Yet I have some problems with a couple of the points it makes (I guess that’s unsurprising!!). It’s a long piece, so buckle yourself in for a long ride. Here’s what I really like about the piece:
Consonance
The article correctly states that the Brexit mindset is a complex interwoven set of beliefs (coalitions within coalitions) that keep getting reinforced by our populist media. I articulated this via my ‘Brexit Brain’ model below. Quite why I coined the phrase ‘Brexorcism‘ to describe the complex quasi-religious mindset change process in the book Reboot Britain.
“It’s really hard. We see tremendous stability over very long periods of time. A choice like Brexit provides endless stimuli to feed that brain activity. It’s coalitions within coalitions within coalitions…” Darren Schreiber.
The Brexit Brain – Read more by clicking the brain.
Thus, normal approaches to change management are not valid: ‘Carrots and sticks; are often used to change simple levels of behaviour and performance at work. For example, if you pay people more, they might work harder for a while. Put them under threat, they may also work harder, go on strike, work less or leave the company etc. But changing Kwasi-religious beliefs such as Brexit is a whole different ball game. It’s not a rational choice as the Guardian article rightly explains.
Whole brained change
I advocate a blend of so-called left (more analytical) and right brained (more emotional) thinking to reach deep into the Brexit psyche of my ‘clients’, what is known as a ‘hearts and minds’ approach in business consulting circles. Using hard hitting emotional headlines to grab people by the heart and longer more analytical approaches to ensure that their heads fall in line with their hearts. The dual approach is epitomised in the book Private Eyelines, a book targeted at leave voters to help them understand how they were lied to. p.s. DO NOT buy the book on Amazon. I get a £2.00 royalty on a sale of £32.99 for six months work, as Amazon keep all the profits! Whilst I don’t write books as an income source, I also don’t write them to boost Amazon’s profits. If you wish to buy a copy direct at an author’s discount, talk to me direct via reboot@brexitrage.com. By the way the left-right brain divide has been questioned but the idea of whole brain thinking (analytical and emotional) is a handy notion to help us think about the need to reach head and heart.
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.” Leon Festinger.
Another truism in the article is the belief that all leave voters are unresponsive to dialogue, thick or closed. This reveals itself in oft quoted statements by some Remainers, who say things like “You can’t educate pork”, “I’ve tried everything” and “They are thick as mince”. Truth be told, some Remainers lack the skills, patience and time to conduct effective Brexorcisms. Also it really matters who you choose as your ‘client’. There really is no point working on a ‘Nigel Farage type hardcore Brexiters’ but many leave voters are not hard leavers. Selection of your targets is key, both in terms of where they sit on the Remain – Leave continuum and to what extent they are key opinion formers for others who follow their views.
“When you pathologise the other side, there’s no point in reaching out to them” Brian Hughes.
Relationship and rapport is key
The article goes on to say something terribly important. “If there is a way through this, he suggests, it is to break down the myths of us and them.” A successful Brexorcism only operates on the basis of a strong relationship and a basic bond of trust. If you are going to challenge beliefs, you need a massive ‘bank balance’ of relationship power to succeed. This is why Steve Bray and his cult have changed very few minds by ‘shouting at people’ in Parliament, upsetting sympathetic media people into the process. In case of doubt, I started on the street with Steve at No 10 Vigil. He quickly spotted that the real action was at Parliament instead of Downing Street and set up a splinter group. Later on, I tried to gain him a permanent platform with other figures at Channel 4 News which he rejected. Of course, Steve’s activities outside the House of Commons have other functions. However, his finest moments were when he quietly but firmly ask politicians difficult questions using a Socratic style and a ‘servant leadership’ approach. But everything counts. We need to use all the therapeutic communication styles as discussed by John Heron in Reboot Britain. Social settings such as cafes, pubs etc. are often more helpful than formal settings, hence my comments about the sauna below, although the sauna is not the only environment in which you can change someone’s mind about Brexit!
In the article, Carol Tavris confirms the view that ‘consonance’ or rapport is vital as a starting point for a successful Brexorcism. The conversation is a healthy mixture of what Comms people call ‘pull’ and ‘push’ strategies or what musicians and psychologists call consonance and dissonance. Finding some common ground is extremely important or giving away trivial wins in order to build a connection. One of the difficulties I notice in some activists is their fundamentalist need to ‘win’ all the arguments with leave voters. It’s better to let them have some small wins in the dance of Brexorcism.
“When we argue with somebody about their beliefs, the absolute crucial thing to avoid is making them feel foolish. If you say something like, ‘How could you be so stupid?’, that will almost always make your listener become even more committed to their belief. If you say instead, ‘Well, many of my own expectations turned out not to be the case too’, that might be a place to start.”
Dissonance
The Guardian article suggests that we must fully convert people to become Rejoiners. This is akin to a religious conversion or what I call a 360-degree Brexorcism. This is fundamentally incorrect. All we need to deliver as a ‘MVP‘ (Minimum Viable Product” is to move people from the idea that Brexit is a good idea towards ambivalence or doubt about the value of Brexit, a 180-degree Brexorcism. This is a much easier task. This converts in behavioural terms to people not voting in another referendum / General Election to support a Brexit party or possibly voting for a pro-Rejoin party to balance out their previous vote. Obviously a full conversion to the cause would be a much stronger position but, as the article points out, it is much more difficult. This is like trying convert a moderate Christian to Islamic fundamentalism when we only need to go as far as agnosticism, not even atheism.
Our approach to Brexorcism has validation from low-profile approaches to change which were reported on by the BBC some while back. A Brexorcism blends ideas from psychology, sociology, anthropology and therapeutic interventions. People who tell me that you cannot change the minds of Brexit voters simply have not understood the fundamentals of Brexorcism which requires large doses of skill, patience and time. I’m offering a free masterclass on the topic for North Hertfordshire for Europe on Sunday November 19th at 5.00 pm via ZOOM. Contact me to reserve your place. I am also willing to give keynotes and masterclasses on our UK tour to develop a cadre of Brexorcists. This is vital if we are to move the dial faster on Brexit regret by a General Election.
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Brexorcism
The will of the people has changed
My other major beef with the article is that it suggests that “though there is some anecdotal and polling evidence that there has been a shift in sentiment, and that remain might now prevail, the same polls show very little appetite to reopen the question.” This is incorrect on two levels:
There has been a seismic shift from 4% to 24% of people that believe that Brexit has failed. By 2024 it is quite feasible that 70% of people will believe that Brexit has failed. At that point politicians will no longer be able to look the other way.
Whilst it’s true that there is currently no appetite to reopen the Brexit question, this is merely a feature of where we have got to in the cycle. Also, of course, a sense of foreboding that another referendum would re-open all the family feeds / social angst and so on. However, another bloody referendum is not the only way to settle the matter. It is also quite certain that not opening up the difficult question will mean that the wounds of Brexit will remain with us for generations to come. Some kind of healing could actually take place with a grown-up recognition that Brexit has failed and that rejoining the EU is both possible and desirable. There is an embedded assumption that we MUST do this via a referendum. It ain’t necessarily so. See this article for London for Europe and Reboot Britain on the choices we face.
Myths and Riffs of Brexit
I note that the last remaining Brexiters are putting forward a number of myths to silence debate. Sadly some remainers also buy into these myths due to learned helplessness. For example:
‘Learned helplessness’ on the part of Remainers plays into a passive acceptance of the idea that Brexit is done and it cannot be undone. This is the belief that we don’t deserve to join anew as it might be considered anti-democratic etc. However, a referendum won through fraud, fake social media ads and which was judged illegal by the Supreme Court had it been mandatory is not the high-water mark of democracy. Leavers were not satisfied by a super majority (67.2% on a 64% turnout) in the initial referendum to join the EU in 1975. Nor should we.
Learned Helplessness summed up. We must not subscribe to it.
Indonesia– our structural deficit
Learned helplessness prevails in a vacuum of leadership and a lack of coherent strategy. Whilst the Remain movement was relatively united in the summer of 2019 after a number of victories, the 2019 election fragmented people again along political party lines. There are now as many proposals on how we rejoin as there are pundits. I describe the organisational structure of the Remain movement as being like Indonesia i.e. 17 000 islands and a few bigger ones. But all operating independently. The bigger beasts such as the European Movement compete with other actors such as Best for Britain. Others prefer to plough their own furrow. Some have been asleep at the wheel, calling for Remainers to make the most of Brexit. Yet, the only good Brexit is a dead Brexit. The consequence of being ‘Indonesia’ is that we find it hard to do things at scale. Fragmentation of strategy / structure and poor leadership also mean that we spend as much time arguing internally about strategy as we do in acting on Brexit and Rejoin. I set out five goals which we coalesce around on a monthly basis. It ain’t perfect but we do our best to provide clarity and collaborative leadership across a group of people from Europe. Join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 8 pm UK time via ZOOM. See also our article on Strategies to Join EU anew.
17 000 islands. A few bigger ones.
Five goals to join anew.
Not fade away
One specific point in the article which is not quite correct is the mention of BBC Question Time’s Brexit special event in Clacton. The journalist stated that the audience was made up entirely of those who voted leave. He went on to suggest that this was presumably to ensure the debate would not simply descend into an all-too familiar slanging match. We actually attended the event and talked with people on the street in Clacton. Levels of ‘Bregret’ were widespread in Brexity Clacton outside the event. They were also quite easy to get from people who realised that they had been taken for fools. The Brexit voting audience were also happy to speak with us after the event and many were of the view that Brexit had failed and that they were lied to. It is therefore a mistake to assume that all Brexiters attending BBC QT are now fully committed to Brexit.
This was mirrored in Brexit voting Deal the other week and on BBC Any Questions in Tory voting Southend on 17 August 2023, where the audience failed to applaud any of the statements made by the Tory panel member. Having been at the centre of some extreme nastiness by Brexiters, including the ex Met Policeman who issued threats of violence, spray painted my house and attended with a knife, I observe from Brexit voting Kent that the slanging matches have largely subsided. However, the article is correct when it infers that the products of Brexit won’t go away by not talking about it. See our Brexit iceberg below. Like it or loathe it, Brexit is the smelly dump and stain in the toilet bowel of life that won’t flush.
The Brexit Iceberg.
Brexit will continue to traumatise a generation if we do not burst the boil of Brexit one way or another. I believe in facing problems rather than sweeping them under political carpets. Labour in particular will be culpable for assisting the tragedy of Brexit if they continue to look away. Much in the way that the vast majority of good German people were silenced through fear during Hitler’s populist uprising. Fence sitting on Brexit is assent.
“The Tories will crow about Brexit being done. The Labour frontbench will solemnly observe that past tense, and avoid the B-word, as if it is a triggering trauma for the party and the country, best left undisturbed.”
Brexit is the smelly dump and stain in the toilet bowl of life that won’t flush
Lost consonance
As an aside, I found the opening paragraph about ‘Brexit hard man’ Steve Baker an unusual lead into the Guardian piece. I saw Mr Baker’s attempt to draw sympathy from the public to be a calculated attempt to humanise him as a piece of electioneering and not a window on his tortured Brexit soul. No decent Christian would agree with the human principles on which Brexit is founded. Like everything else with Brexit, it’s just another set of illusions. For example, The European Research Group (ERG) does no research. The weaponisation of asylum seekers to appeal to racists and people with feeble minds is not what Jesus would have done. and so on. Baker uses his faux Christianity as a shield and has now turned into a snowflake to gain sympathy from his constituents using the Brexit confessional box. Baker’s so called mental illness, beard growth and acne were mobilised as excuses. Krishnan Guru-Murphy’s analysis was correct when he pointed out that Baker was a C…nt.
Baker explained “I felt repugnant, hateful, to blame for all of the troubles that we had, absolutely without any joy, constantly worried about everything to the point of mental torment. A constant state of panic attacks and anxiety”. So he should, for all the pain he has inflicted on our children and those having anxiety, depression and lost careers / jobs / livelihoods due to Brexit. In fact, Baker should be in jail alongside Rees-Mogg who promised us cheap training shoes, Farage who promised a boom in fish and chips and Johnson who said that Brexit would make my wife’s breasts bigger. I’ve checked several times. They haven’t.
