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The Chronicles of Brexit

Last of the Summer Whine

I note empirically from loads of conversations in real life and on Linkedin that the last remaining Brexiteers really only have one issue left. It’s their illusion that the EU is an unelected, bloated dictatorship. Although online Brexorcisms are essentially a waste of time for a host of reasons, other people do notice the whining desperation of these people and therefore I spend a little time on this artform. Here’s a sadly amusing sequence from Steve Rimmington, who today admitted that he was diagnosed with mental health problems but refused to get treatment. I am left wondering if this influenced his Brexit vote (only joking of course – mental health problems, particularly untreated as in Steve’s case, are something that the Government and everyone need to take seriously). I always seek an answer from such people about the benefits of Brexit. None ever came during our exchange and instead Steve tried distraction and gaslighting. None of these work as someone who wrote the book on Brexorcism. Here is some of our exchange, as a series of responses to a post from Sir Keir Starmer.

Steve’s valid objection is that I have not worked as an employee in the service sector. It’s true. Yet I have met plenty of people who do. One does not need to have committed suicide to be a suicide counsellor and so on. More importantly, Steve does not seem to understand that Zero Hours Contracts are particularly a UK phenomenon, with many European countries outlawing them. Zero-hours contracts are NOT permitted in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain. So, UK was able to operate these bad HR arrangements whilst it was a member of the EU. This rather debunks his notion of a controlling EU superstate. Exploitation of workers is a feature of bad management and that’s what a decent Government might address in a decent political system. Our Brexit government has failed to do so and the direction of travel is back to the workhouse. Although ZHC are currently running at a rate of 3.6% the trend is upwards in Brexit Britain and I agree with Steve that they are a bad feature of our employment landscape.

Steve decides to take offence at this point. As a self employed person of 30 years I have effectively always been on zero hours, having juggled clients over this time. So, I do understand the uncertainty that this can produce. Having said that, I chose my employment arrangement which makes an enormous difference. As a former CIPD Council member, I can confirm that Brexit will gradually lead to poorer employee protection.

Steve attempts to suggest that I blame everything on Brexit. He has not seen my multiple causation / correction iceberg model that includes COVID and Ukraine as causation factors for our malaise. However COVID is a short term effect and Ukraine has only really had a dramatic effect on oil prices and, to some extent, food. Brexit has affected our resilience to the tune of 4.5% GDP loss into the future. Like trying to swim the channel with a 20kg block of concrete round your neck.

The Brexit iceberg – a simplified multiple cause / correlation model.

Steve then tries more shapeshifting to avoid answering the simple question about the ‘many benefits’ of Brexit. In a very usual trick he tries to blame the EU for OUR decision to leave the EU. He appears to have forgotten the promises of zero friction, only sunny uplands and no downsides with immediate benefits. In a real life Brexorcisms I never let people pass to a new subject until they have answered the set question. Rather than explain the benefits of Brexit, Steve suggests that I have insulted him. An insult might be something like “you smell”, but as is clear here I have kept to the simple question of asking him to explain Brexit benefits. In real life, this very occasionally leads to violence. Despite this, I always advocate real life rather than online Brexorcisms due to the factors mentioned below. Steve demonstrates these well.

Online Brexorcisms
The perils of working online with people who have quasi religious beliefs about Brexit.

Steve has worked out that I’m getting bored so he attempts to cough up some benefits. The COVID vaccine story is a verified LIE. And the Australian deal heavily favours Australia being worth just £11 bn as compared with £550 bn with EU. To put this in plain terms, the Australian trade deal offers a potential saving of just £1 per household. How will you spend yours? Steve was right when he stated that he was humouring me. Sadly the self-inflicted slow decline of a once proud nation is not funny.

Steve does not understand that we were so desperate to secure Brexit deals that we effectively are in a Brexit fire sale. The Australian deal crucially threatens our farming and farmers. And the CPTPP deal is worth LESS than 0.08% over a decade. Even Nigerian Fraudster Kemi Badenoch has admitted this. Steve does not understand negotiation strategy. All the more reason for Steve to read Reboot Britain. I know he won’t. He will just get more angry with his Brexit buyers’ remorse and attempt to blame others for his decision. And finally on the questions raised at the outset of this article:

BLOATED : The EU has around 30 000 Civil servants to serve 500 million people whereas Britain has 502,710 to serve 67 million people. I will leave you to do the math. This has increased by 19,260 in recent times. It is the UK who score most highly on bureaucracy.

UNELECTED : Contrary to headlines in the Daily Mail / Express, EU officials are elected.

DICTATORSHIP : The EU sets guidelines for high standards of behaviour in many areas of global governance, but individual nations are free to address national issues. If it were a dictatorship, everyone would rive on the same side of the road, bullfighting and fox hunting would be banned and so on. The accusation is quite simply barking mad. In many areas the EU is way ahead of Britain in terms of democratic processes such as Citizens’ Assemblies and so on. For dictatorship see Belarus and North Korea.

At this point I concluded that Steve was really a waste of my time online. I left him with the option of calling me for a proper conversation or an online debate. I much prefer real life conversation as a medium for Brexorcism. I do offer crayons with all direct purchases of my books by the way. Steve left me with the view that nobody could predict the future. Of course, he’s right, if we are talking about the precision of forecasting methods, scenario planning and so on, but it is entirely false to say that Brexit futures cannot be predicted. Most of the predictions made by the Remain movement have come to pass and the worst is yet to come. I am not King Canute either. At this point, Steve does not realise that the Bank of England have withheld an evaluation report on Brexit. I can only presume it makes for uncomfortable reading …

Books
Click the image to read the books online.

Read The Last Remaining Brexiteers

Join us in London next week

True and Fair 3Es

Economy, Education, Environment

You are cordially invited to Gina Miller’s True and Fair party launch event on Economy, Education, Environment, Tuesday November 7th at 9.00 am online via ZOOM. This is the 2nd part of the True and Fair party’s policy release in the build up to a general election.

In the 4th industrial age, education is the key to so many things. Our Government has run down education over 13 years of managed decline to the point that our schools are literally crumbling, mentally and physically. They are also in denial of climate change and environmental stewardship, the very antithesis of what the idea of conservatism was supposed to mean. And we hardly need to mention the economy after 13 years of austerity which powered Brexit. This has led to a 4.5% knock in our resilience to face other global shocks such as Russia’s war, COVID and so on. Only Gina Miller’s party has a clear strategy for rejoining the EU.

If you want different rather than a continuation of the same old same old, join Gina Miller’s party today. True and Fair are standing a small number of candidates across England and some more plurality in our politics will enable us to lever significant change in Westmonster. Check out their Chapters for Change policy document on the reforms needed in politics. If you can help the candidates in any way in Derbyshire Dales, East Wiltshire, Epsom, Ewell, Leatherhead, Fareham, Waterlooville, Mid Bedfordshire, Monmouthshire or the Wirral, please get in touch via reboot@brexitrage.com

Conviction candidates rather that Convicted Conservative candidates.

Join us on Wed Nov 1st 8pm on ZOOM to Reboot Britain