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Brexit has failed

News from the Brexit Bunker

Don Adamson reports the news that the Brexit media refuse to print from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley.

This week’s homework

One Tories have decided to rejoin the Horizon project – an EU wide scheme to fund scientific research all over Europe. Does this mean that the Tories are waking up to reality about the absurdity of Brexit before Keith Starmer and his Labour Party? 

Read Horizon

Two Discuss the following statement – When Richy Scumbag and Keith Starmer talk about their fancy ideas ‘to make Brexit work’ they most closely resemble two mutineers discussing how to blow a hole in the hull of a ship that is already sinking.

This week’s quotes

Hospitality is worth £93Bn to the UK economy, employs 3.5M people

… pays £54Bn in tax … until recently Tory party was considered to be the party of business … ties companies in red tape then lectures companies in not taking advantage of the opportunities offered … real people lose jobs, money, their businesses … Brexit has put a huge spanner in the works …. Massive hurdles for the industry…. government is hoist by its own petard … margins are squeezed … profits are down…

Brexit and rail fails have made Britain a laughing stock  

… Madras Courier … with Brexit Britain has closed its doors on global trade and commerce … rationale for divorcing a free trade bloc is baffling in an age of globalisation … India is interested in trading with the rest of the world … why would it want to forge links with a country that has turned its back on global trade … UK figures show that the mooted trade deal with India could boost UK GDP by 0.12% compared to the loss of around 5% which is the cost of Brexit … the contrast between the view of the Daily Express and the Madras Courier could not be more pronounced … the latter view is now prevailing internationally … other countries, both in and out of the EU do things better that UK … UK has become poorer as other nations have thrived … skilled workers can choose where they want to go … foreign skilled workers are not only needed but really welcome …

How paranoid nationalism corrupts it makes governments not just nastier but more corrupt

… dismantling checks and bank balances that promote good, clean governance … abuses are easier when institutions are weak … men in power have invented or exaggerated threats to the nation … paranoid nationalism is a backlash against good governance …leaders create acclimate where loyalty comes before truth … there is nothing racist or disloyal about wishing for a better life … unscrupulous leaders vow to defend people against confected threats … politics based on bigotry open the door to misrule and corruption … nationalism can foster the abuse of power … politicians grant their cronies influence … if leaders use nationalism to erode checks and balances it becomes easier for his cronies to plunder … 

GB News is a threat to its rivals and a trap for the Tories 

… offers plenty to mock … adverts filled with promotions for gold dealers and erectile dysfunction drugs … cast includes several fruitcakes … opinion driven coverage … Fox News is a clear inspiration … modest audience 600,000 a day … its loyal core is just 10% of the audience for the hours viewed … will have a greater impact on the Tory party if, as seems likely … the Tories lose the next election…. will proselytise in the struggle for control of the rump party … greatest threat to opposition parties is when they make themselves irrelevant 

Nadine Dorries has a notoriously elastic relationship with the truth …

Squabbling over spoils from Covid pandemic contracts has reached the rats in a sack stage … Medicaid owned by a Gloucester based Tory  accumulated profits of more than £12M.

Support our campaign for the True and Fair Party in Mid Beds

What is the difference between RAAC and RAAB  

… one is dense, full of hot air, dangerous and past its sell by date. The other is a type of concrete…

Sarah Vain putting the me in mediocre

… ‘government has been in office 13 years and has run the country into the ground; possibly because it contains my useless ex husband …;’

London once had a claim to be at the heart of musical Europe…

No peerage for Paul Dacre 

… state looks after Daily Mail grandee in other ways … his estate (Ullapool) granted £240,000 in rural subsidies…

Richy Scumbag’s approval rate sinks to minus 25%

… everyone around Scumbag, maybe even Scumbag himself is in a post Scumbag mode… Britain feels like an absolute shambles….  almost nothing works…. social and physical infrastructure is collapsing around us…. this is exactly the kind of epic unpatriotic Remoaning that Sarah Vine the Daily Mail’s High Priestess of Brexit used to decry as ‘unpatriotic’ … these are Vine’s own words … can hardly have endeared her to Rothermere who wants his paper to ‘accentuate the positive ahead of the election’ … 

A crumbling land of perpetual slums and a moribund PM with no plan 

… political panic, headless chickens … and an already acrimonious blame game … RAAC is also likely to expose dangerous asbestos … Johnson’s promises seek a distant memory and a sick joke … a government beset by fiasco and scandal … as despairing Tory MP put it ‘an in your face scandal’ … Gillian Keegan, Education Secretary, is writing cheques that she cannot possibly cash….  Scumbag is presiding over turmoil that inescapably triggers memories of Covid and school closures … hard to speak with a straight face of a government that delivers ‘value for money’ … tax burden at its highest for 70 years … Treasury says that ‘the money to pay for repairs and timetable disruption will have to be found from existing budget. Not a serious way to govern …  a deeply embedded rottenness in public life…. Brexit is the archetype of this tendency … sporadic warnings about time bomb of RAAC…. this is much more than an educational scandal … buckling and groaning of the social contract … what sort of country do we want to live in? …. How run down, decrepit jerry rigged and dilapidated are we ready for our post Brexit country to be? …. wretchedly buried under cheap concrete rubble …everything this gover4nment touches turns to rot … former Tory leader Ian Duncan Snot says he is happy for his constituents to damang3 measures in London without a squeak of outrage … 

RAAC and Roll
RAAC and Roll

Men with no shame

… their Brexit is a disaster … now fighting to stop the rest of us from putting it right … want to defend Brexit at any cost … according to Nigel Garb age ‘sell-out of Brexit is under way … Tories never believed in it … regardless of all the warnings in the economic data the Brexiters last argument is that the revolution would surely succeed if it was pursued more zealously … seven years after Brexit there is a haziness about what Brexit benefits might be … the numbers are not encouraging … Brexiters continue to promise a crock of gold … Brexit delivered a 10% hit to the economy … UK opinion shifted 60-40 in favour of Rejoin … 

Brexit is dead
Brexit is dead

Latest polls put Rejoining the EU at 63% …

It is immoral to force the insufferable consequences of Brexit on voters who were lied to.

Brexicide a neologism that aptly captures the toxicity of the event… 

Over 80% of under 25s and over 60% of the country want to Rejoin the EU. 

Read Helpful Facts

As the worm of public opinion turns there should be less reason for Keith Starmer to maintain a deathly hush over Brexit

… Red Wall manufacturing heartlands face the biggest downsides from Brexit … it is time to think again about Brexit by taking an approach based on facts and not fallacy and fantasy … both Labour and Tories airily promise that Brexit disadvantages will be massaged away … UK diplomatic and trading relationships will not survive another seven years of disengagement. The time for a Brexit reboot is now….

The negative impact of Brexit … The fact that no political party will speak the truth about this…

Don Adamson Pip Pip             Medway Delta (Retired)          Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Reform

Reformation shuffle

Do we need to reform the civil service? By Paul Higgins.

We have heard quite often lately that the civil service needs to be reformed. Whilst this is true, the reform needed should go in the opposite direction to the one we so often hear about. Most problems in the civil service come from contagion from politicians, especially ministers and secretaries of state.

If we look at current ministers and compare them with those 30 or 40 years ago, we see that today ministers in any department have little or no expertise or knowledge of their areas. 40 years ago, the Secretary of, say, Defence, used to be a military or an expert with an idea of where he wanted our armed forces to be in 10 years and what steps were needed for that journey to happen. Similarly, the Secretary of Agriculture was a farmer, an academic, a veterinarian or someone with experience or expertise in farming. Because of this expertise they tended to stay longer in the post, which enabled them to build a strong corporate memory to address the various issues affecting the department or the field, to see future problems and to prevent them before they happened.

Things have changed dramatically. Ministers now move fast from one department to another and they rarely have any knowledge of the areas they manage, whether it is farming, defence or international relations. Because of this, politics are now quite shortsighted. Nothing after the next general election matters and public services show a sharp decline in efficiency and quality. This is because the building stones for this quality will deliver tangible results only after some decades after being laid instead of some months. Another factor behind the increasingly poorer quality of public decisions is its politicisation. It is quite common to see a minister arguing with the engineers about whether a road should be built passing through this or that constituency, and, as you can imagine, the arguments rest on how voters in the constituency would react to a new road instead of on how to make the road safe, cheaper, environmentally friendly or how it will improve the capacity and time of journeys.

The civil service is suffering a similar trend. This is very clear when we look at recruitment or promotions where technical expertise has disappeared and instead the so-called behaviours are now the only criteria. These behaviours are valid everywhere, in every post, but leadership, influence or communicating will not make you capable of designing the best road but to argue in a powerpoint that it wasn’t your fault that the road was of a substandard quality. Putting even more effort in promoting these behaviours will improve relations between ministers and civil servants in the short term but will result in even worse and more expensive public services. As problems and tensions accumulate the blame game will intensify and we will see even more and louder calls to reform the civil service and get rid of unelected bureaucrats and experts. Since civil servants are not allowed to respond and publish their side of the story, this trend is quite difficult to reverse.

Finally, it is worth noticing that while most governments in western democracies suffer this problem, it is the UK Government where it is most exacerbated and, hence, more difficult to reverse.

Paul Higgins

Books
Reform, Renew, Reboot Britain

Career opportunities

I stumbled over a job for Medway Council as a Political Assistant to the Conservative Group. The role requires an allegiance to the Tory party but is paid for by taxpayers money. I cannot understand how this can be legal. It’s an outrage. Anyway I made an application. Here are the job basics in blue and my personal statement in purple. What are my chances?

Job Spec

The Conservative Group are looking to recruit a highly motivated individual with exceptional political and communication skills to support its work. You will assist with political issues, suggest potential courses of action and provide evaluation, information and research services as required. You will proactively research policy, liaise with the media, prepare speeches and brief members.

You will need acute political judgement, be able to establish positive working relationships with members and officers, have excellent communication skills and be able to assimilate and analyse information quickly, spotting critical political issues and managing time effectively to ensure deadlines are met. The need to be sympathetic to the aims of the Conservative Party will be essential.

My personal statement

I am committed to Tory fascism and its practical applications in Medway. This makes me ideal for the position. Here are some specific behaviours and projects I would be willing to oversee:
Very happy to watch asylum seekers drown whilst fleeing from terror if it pleases my MP.
I will assist the sitting Tories to recreate Dead Man’s island as an asylum centre.
Delighted to see the rise of food banks in Medway. Lee Anderson is right when he says that people can cook a meal for 30p. Dust is plentiful in the towns and inexpensive.
I think Boris is a good laugh and probably plays a good game of darts. If required I will meet him in the Cooper’s Arms to talk about Winston Churchill, the Dambusters and the failure of Medway to ingratiate itself by becoming a city.

I can spend money without moral justification or a business case. Whilst I’m not up to the Liz Truss, Dido Harding or Boris Johnson nuclear levels of spaffing, I will learn at the feet of the masters in the council. I approved of the utter waste of money for the Japanese roundabout and the Tori.

We will commission a bird clearance society on the Cliffe Peninsula. Birds serve no useful function for the Tories and the removal of the birds will pave the way for Cliffefell – a high rise development on the marshes, built to new Brexit fire standards.
I’m able to come up with meaningless three word chants to distract the masses from anything that might be important.
I would help to see Suella Braverman as the head of social services in Medway and the installation of prison hulks on Rochester Riverside and Chatham Dockside.

I am joining the Masons. You may say it’s too late, but I have ordered an apron on e-bay.

Civil servants are a blight on society. I would ensure that the council workers are publicly humiliated and flogged at the Dockyard for their woke dress sense and other aspects of their scummy hand to mouth existence on a daily basis. This would also serve as a visitor attraction and bring more revenue to the Council.

I have many bags of sovrinty in my loft and will use them to inflate the aspirations of the prevailing Tory MPs who are not so ashamed of themselves that they will still stand for election in 2024.

I once drowned a puppy and felt no emotion. I saw that as a turning point in my emotional resilience, taking my inspiration from Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.

I am not afraid to call Vince Maple and Keith Starmer out for copying us on Brexit. They have no ideas of their own.

Kelly Tolhust is a proper hardcore woman. She’s a dude innit. We should use her to do some cage fighting with the woke Labour Councillors. We should fight them with the biatches. The Green party in Medway are terrified of her and we can organise some Just Stop Oil type people to fight with them as they eat their vegan sandwiches.
We can transform the Dickens’ Festival into an all year round reality event with guidance from the Minister for the 18th Century, Jacob Rees-Mogg. With forced child labour camps in Luton Road, bear-bating in Lordswood and a Scurvy Centre replacing Gillingham Library. Disease keeps the proles occupied and I will ask Rodney Chambers to commission a campaign of releasing rats into lower Gillingham.

I am skilled in painting and decorating and stand ready to paint over any cheery artworks in child care centres and infant schools.
We could turn the Medway Tunnel into a giant refugee concentration centre. If anyone escapes they would find themselves on the Medway City Estate, itself a wasteland. Fun Drum could also be used to contain the immigrant scum.
If needed. I have some Nat C cosplay suits for party conferences and other Tory youth rallies.
I have a collection of German marching tunes on 78 RPM CDs.
I will fashion an Alan Jarrett memorial statue using slave labour from the Medway artist community and erect it at the War Memorial. Art, music and poetry are a blight on the Medway landscape and I would work hard to replace this will statues of Mark Francois and other military figures.
I am comfortable with taking additional wages for doing arms consultancy with Saudi Arabia whilst relaxing at Avenue Tennis Club.

I have many criminal convictions: petty crime, grand fraud, sexual predation and so on as well as general lying and making false promises. I hope these will be an asset to the Tory party.
I hope that’s enough.

p.s. Brexit has failed – 350 000 people agree with me on this.

350 000 plus views in one day and no credible explanations of the benefits of Brexit.

Somewhat fortuitously, Rishi Sunak has just requested a new post of Prime Minister’s Official Deputy Spokesperson and Head of News. I have also applied for this using some of the ideas for the local job. No disrespect to the council but I’d prefer the top job.

No future … at Medway Council.

Read Bath Building Society and Brexit

Read GB News

Support the UK Tour

Brexit bunker

Brexit Blights Blighty

Don Adamson reports the news that the media does not wish to print. Here he speaks from his Brexit Bunker in Barnsley.

This week’s homework

One – Alec Salmond has a spot on GB News. Has always been a Brexit believer or has he gone over to the dark side? 

Check our page on Scotland

Two – If there was a Nobel Prize for Jackanory, PG would have won it every year. I had the misfortune to work with him long ago and far away. After work he would stand at the bar and entertain his friends with blood curdling accounts of his adventures in faraway places with strange sounding names. By a strange coincidence these adventures would bear an astonishing resemblance to the story lines of movies recently screened at the local cinema. My personal favourite Jackanory was his involvement in the 1953 Everest expedition. He was supposed to make the final assault but that was cancelled at the last minute. One of the climbers broke a leg and PG had to say with the casualty because PG was the only paramedic on the expedition. PG turned to Edmund Hilary and said: ‘You will have to go with Tensing tomorrow. You are the next best man after me.” That claim should be written in gold letters on the wall of a museum dedicated to Bull***t. PG very quickly stopped being funny. Within weeks of his arrival he grandly announced that he was on the verge of major breakthroughs that had baffled us lesser mortals. We would have thanked him for it if he had succeeded where the rest of us had failed. Alas 18 Months later (when I was posted away to another assignment) he was still claiming (without a hint of irony) to be on the verge of these same major breakthroughs.

I chanced to meet him again years later. I asked what he was doing with his retirement. He claimed to have gone into politics and was both a local councillor and a school governor. I asked which party. He replied “Conservative.” Why does that not surprise me? 

This week’s quotes

Georgia has the goal of EU and NATO membership 

60% of Georgians want to join NATO …80% want to join EU

Brexit Hack watch Daily Mail says Brexit is having an effect on advertising revenue

… It is rough out there… Mail big Leave Supporter … Mail leader May 2023 said ‘too early to say if Brexit was working’ … An Wilson permitted to suggest ‘Brexit was a mistake’ … Andrew Neil wrote fatalistically ‘Brexit could transform Britain but neither Richy Scumbag nor Keith Starmer is a true believer’ … Daily Express in 2016 more anti EU than the Mail now runs stories of the downside of Brexit. Torygraph says ‘Brexit has been botched’ …  Spectator Brexit means more immigration than ever … to a degree that New Labour would never have dared attempt …  Brexit benefits utterly non existent … newspapers distancing themselves from something they helped create …  is Labour’s Keith Starmer the only committed Brexiter left in Britain …

Check our gutterpress pages

Pandemic Britain had half the intensive care beds compared to Europe average and quarter of Germany’s

… failure to enhance health and safety law … dearth of guidance … grossly inadequate health provisions …  healthcare workers exposed to harm … some dying … 2012 Health and Social Care Act shrunk and splintered public health teams … Austerity starved essential services of cash … worsened public health … double whammy made worse during pandemic … no NHS hospital  had plans for a sustained pandemic … lacked skill set to plan … buildings old and poorly maintained … 

Ultra Low Emission Zone 

… Johnson condemned the scheme despite him bringing in ULEZ as Khan’s predecessor … surprises nobody given Johnson’s depths of dishonesty and opportunism … across Europe only Turkey has a higher respiratory death rate than UK … world beaters at last …

Check our article on ULEZ

Short Termism in Tory Party 

… Somebody is sitting in the shade because somebody else planted a tree long ago … perennial problem: balancing the long term good with short term expediency … that is why the National Health Service was in such a precarious state when Covid Struck … intensive care beds run down to dangerously low levels … World Health Organisation said NHS was way out of line with other countries … Germany had 33.9 beds per 100,000 population … England had 10.5 …  dreadful long term vulnerability … delaying criticism of how government handled pandemic takes priority over preparing for the next one … Top British scientists unanimous that every day we spend outside Horizon damages our science base. Amount of EU money going into British science since 2019 decimated … people doing groundbreaking research have deserted because UK excluded from Horizon … Eminent scientists despair … no confidence in Pioneer; the government’s half baked proposal for a go it alone version of Horizon … Private Finance Initiative hospitals are being crippled … just one of many problems … indications are that Tories will concentrate on immigration and culture wars. It will take a brave optimist to see Starmer rising above this…

Check Pay as EU go Rejoin

Liberal Democrat Autumn conference embarrassing diary clash

… same day as the National Rejoin March takes place in London … last thing we want is a desultory turn out …membership numbers have dwindled since Ed Davey repudiated the Rejoin policy … Editor’s note : NRM might also have checked the date as I imagine that the Lib Dems will have had this fixed in the diary for some time – one of the first principles of event management. I am banned from attending by a cabal of self-annointed European Movement / Grassroots for Europe people anyway.

Nigel Garbage in penury 

… lately bought a new £575,000 beachfront house … all cash transaction brings his property holdings to around £2M… 

Farage v Cats
Farage v Cats

Lloyds Bank understandable desire to be rid of the Telegraph and Spectator ASAP  

… a valuation near the  touted £600M is wishful thinking … print side of the Telegraph operation is a liability … ensuring the titles end up owned by a very right wing owners clearly in the best interests of the faction that now controls the Tory Party … 

For years we have not had a serious government 

… a grisly soap opera in which talentless characters have starring roles and prime ministers change almost as often as Chelsea managers …Downing St 5 – Stamford Bridge 9 … we have not had a serious media but dumbed down commercial interests masquerading as purveyors of news … taking what used to be serious parts of the media in their wake … unserious government and unserious media are locked in a dumbed down political embrace … Huw Edwards spasm, a dubious story in dumbed down dubious newspapers … allegations against Dan Wootton the GBNews presenter are far more serious than anything thrown against Huw Edwards … if you write down the top thousand grievances that should command the attention of the PM Nigel Garbage’s banking arrangements should not make the list … Richy Scumbag bleating about the need for professionalism and integrity … this from the man who sat alongside Johnson … Covid partied with Johnson … tolerated the lies … Cabinet queued to fuel the Nigel Garbage as victim narrative … he and the right wing media ARE the establishment … pushed a referendum on Cameron … moaning about their victory ever since because the Brexit they get is never the one they wanted … rest of the country knows Tories will never find it because it does not exist … 

Don Adamson Pip Pip             Medway Delta (Retired)                       Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class 

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Brexit bunker

Brexit bunker

Now that Nigel Farage has declared that Brexit had failed, Don Adamson reports the news that the tabloids dare not print. Don writes from his British Brexit Bunker in balmy Barnsley …

This week’s quotes: “British government makes a mockery of its rules … politicians need to get real, fast … Britain’s under taxation of posh houses is scandalous … like all autocrats … has cemented himself in power by systematically weakening institutions … erosion of democracy … excessive accumulation of power … clouds judgement and moral sense … diminishing the role of parliament … used state’s power in partial and punitive ways … massaging inflation figures and awarding lucrative contracts to cronies …

48 52 Crash

Britain’s stock market has deteriorated … in 2022 just 1% of global capital was raised in London … in 2006 the City’s share was 18% … Dealmakers after Brexit do not see London Stock Exchange as the gateway to Europe … the 48 : 52 Brexit vote has crashed to 37 : 63.

Shut your cakehole

Brexit The Movie … explains why much has gone awry … Johnson embraced a ‘cakeist’ approach claiming Britain could have it all … instead  surrendered market access and kept the laws … political failure … a half remembered vision of Thatcherism … attempts floundered … Britain’s small market made the burden of additional bureaucracy unaffordable … the notion that Britain needed smarter  and better funded officials was absent … too under resourced to keep pace with EU … subject to less scrutiny by judges … no debate about how Britain should be regulated … what happens when cronyism gets completely out of control. If elites so enrich themselves that they impoverish the country … a kleptocracy forms … at what level does corruption destroy the functions of a state … kleptocrats launder kickbacks … shady owners skirt rules and registries often lack the resources to police them …

Visa vis Brexit

Britain’s tier one visa scheme gave permanent residency to foreigners who invested £1M in Britain … of the 13,777 visas issued a fifth went to Russians and a third to Chinese … Authorities need to prevent hazardous assets seeping into their countries  ….a vote to stop the NHS disputes is not the end of the story … worst industrial action in British history. The scale would have shocked Thatcher …

Sunackered

Richy Scumbag has urged the public to ‘hold me to account’ if waiting lists do not fall. That goal looks precarious … Tories have no idea how to reform Britain … Sharp’s departure is the latest example of Tory failure … Tories have lost almost every fight they picked … taming the Treasure has been a goal of successive Tory PMs … Treasury is stronger than ever … Cameron promised a ‘bonfire of Quangos’ … today they are stronger than ever … Brexit was supposed to create a leaner  more efficient British state … it is easier to complain than to achieve anything …

Good morning judge

Tories seethe about the influence of European judges … do little about it … Tories have no excuse … happier moaning about institutions than altering them … After more than a decade in power Tories have no idea how to reform the state … 

Farage in a bunker

Meanwhile Nigel Garbage, that is Trump’s Brexit Guru Buddy, has stated that Brexit has failed. The best brains in the world have been saying for years that Brexit is howling lunacy that would FUBAR Britain. For some time now Gammons and Flagshaggers have been making excuses to the effect that Brexit is a brilliant idea that would have worked perfectly except that ‘Remoaners’ jinxed it by maliciously and deliberately getting the facts right. What is interesting about the Nigel Garbage statement is that Garbage blames the Tories for the failure of Brexit. Garbage is paid handsomely by Gammonite Balderdash News to cheerlead for a) the Tories and b) Brexit. We do live in strange times when even Nigel Garbage has noticed that Brexit has failed.

Don Adamson Pip Pip             Medway Delta (Retired)                       Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

Nigel Farage’s Garage – post-punk jazz funk psychotic ambience.
Our Brexit impact film.
Brexit has failed

Reversing Brexit

Here are the thoughts of Paul Cawthorne on reversing Brexit and joining the EU anew. Paul is an economist living on the Swiss – Italian border. He presents a logical incrementalism perspectives as a comparison to our ‘all or nothing‘ approach:

GOAL: full membership of the EU asap

We can all agree on this overriding objective but there are inevitable differences of opinion regarding the most appropriate strategy and tactics.

Single market

My personal viewpoint is that rejoining the single market is the essential first step needed before the ultimate objective of full EU membership can be achieved.

Rationale

  1. Rejoining the single market would not require a referendum. Editor’s note : a referendum is not the only choice in any case. See London for Europe.
  2. Rejoining the single market would not require a lengthy application procedure under the Copenhagen Criteria.
  3. The UK’s current position as the only country in Western Europe outside the single market is economically unworkable and unsustainable.
  4. It would go a long way to resolving most, but not all, of the post-Brexit economic damage. Editor’s note : Brexit damage is also social, political, legal and environmental.
  5. It would be seen as a confidence building measure to convince the EU27 of the UK’s ultimate goal of EU membership.
  6. Once in the single market the UK’s unsatisfactory status as a “rule taker” (Norway/Swiss model) could be used to convince the electorate that we need to become a “rule maker”.
  7. Rejoining the single market is an essential stepping stone on the road to achieving the central objective.

Focusing on rejoining the single market in the short to medium term should in no way preclude campaigning for the central overriding objective.

Learn from the final failure of the PV campaign

It should not be forgotten that the PV campaign was very nearly successful. It ultimately failed for 3 main reasons:

  1. The decision of Corbyn and Swinson to fall into the trap of Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” December 2019 election.
  2. Problems of leadership at the top of the movement.
  3. Bad luck in timing: if COVID had come 3 months earlier or Johnson’s “oven ready deal” had not been agreed for at least another 3 months Brexit would have been delayed indefinitely.

Ultimately, whatever the weight of public opinion, the number of people who take part in marches and/or sign petitions, campaigns are won or lost in parliament. Most MPs likely to elected in 2024 will not have fixed, immovable positions on Brexit reversal but will need to be convinced that supporting rejoin is in their interests.

Learn from the success of Vote Leave

Focus on:

  1. Keeping the message simple and repeating it over and over again. “Brexit has failed”; “you were lied to”.
  2. Emphasising the positive impacts of rejoining as much as the negative effects of leaving.
  3. Playing the patriotic card: “Britain leading in Europe and the world”. Editor’s note: Our strapline below conveys this.
  4. Turning around the Leave slogans and narrative: “take back control in the heart of Europe”; “outside the EU we have lost control”; “the new will of the people”.
Reboot Britain
Our strapline. Begins with home and fans out to wider concerns.

Positive messages

At least 70% of the electorate need to be convinced of 2 things:

  1. Rejoining the EU is an essential desirable objective
  2. Rejoining the EU is achievable

Focus on the future and not the past.

To spread the positive message, young people need to be given prominent leadership positions in the campaign.

A one minute street pop up mini talk which addresses some of Paul’s points.

Labour’s flawed Brexit policy

Labour’s current “Make Brexit Work” policy is seriously flawed and, at best, will have no positive or negative impacts on their immediate electoral prospects.

Key factors:

  1. Poor advice based on outdated (2019) focus groups and internal polling data.
  2. Overestimation of the enduring support for a hard Tory Brexit in the so-called Red Wall.
  3. Underestimation of the the impact of Brexit’s evident failure on public opinion.
  4.  Underestimation of the impact of demographic changes on the electorate.
  5.  Overblown fear of the reaction of Tory tabloids to any perceived watering down of Brexit.
  6. Misplaced belief that “Make Brexit Work” will be a convincing winning 3-word slogan in 2024.
  7. Nostalgic belief that Labour is still essentially a “working class” party and needs to prioritise at all costs the views and prejudices of these traditional “core supporters”.

Labour’s flawed position needs to be abandoned. Labour politicians parroting “Make Brexit Work” and “no case for rejoining the SM or CU” are convincing neither rejoiners nor Brexiters and are coming over either as lobotomized Stepford Wives or insincere party apparatchiks.

They will only be persuaded to address the elephant in the room when they are convinced of the urgent economic necessity and that it is their political  interests to do so.

Linked campaigns

4 electoral changes need to be promoted that would help ensure a positive future EU referendum result and put to lay any lingering fears from the EU that a future single party UK government could opt for Brexit again:

  1. PR, preferably a system close to the German model, which is strongly proportional but maintains constituency representation, it also involves a minimum 4% threshold that, in the case of the UK, could be applied in each of the 4 nations.
  2. COMPULSORY VOTING as in Australia or Belgium to ensure a high turnout, especially among young voters.
  3. REDUCE THE MINIMUM VOTING AGE TO 16 (as in Brazil and Scotland) to maximise the youth vote. A related campaign could be the promotion of political and civic education in schools.
  4. ENFRANCHISE ALL EU CITIZENS LEGALLY RESIDENT IN THE UK. Currently citizens from Ireland, Malta and Cyprus (3 EU members) are able to vote in UK elections together with residents from many Commonwealth countries; many of these are only in the UK on temporary work visas.

EU education

Seven years after the referendum here is still a worrying lack of knowledge and understanding about how the EU works. Poor knowledge of the EU is common in all age groups and among those who voted both leave and remain in 2016. In contrast, in most EU countries a study of the history and institutions of the EU is a compulsory part of a broad school curriculum.

Many people, including politicians, will speak confidently about the pros and cons of the single market and customs union but would be hard pressed to explain the differences between these two entities.

If there is eventually a rejoin referendum, there will need to be a much better informed electorate. Paul produced 432 benefits of EU membership in the book Reboot Britain.

About Paul Cawthorne

Paul Cawthorne graduated from the London School of Economics in 1982. In 1989 he left Thatcherland to become a poll tax exile. Over the last 30 years he has worked as a teacher of history, geography, economics and business management in national and international schools in France, Italy and Switzerland. He is currently living and working near Varese in the north of Italy and impatiently waiting to become an Italian (and EU) citizen. Paul is married with two grown-up children.

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Editor’s note: Other viewpoints are available on joining anew, such as Gina Miller’s all or nothing view. Join us at her launch event on Monday 10 July in London.

Boris Johnson in the stocks

Gammonite Balderdash News

Our weekly update from Brexit Balderdash de-Bunker Don Adamson from his Brexit Bunker buried in Barnsley. Don takes on GB News aka Gammon Balderdash News this week.

This week’s homework: 

One. Discuss the following statement – Daily Vile has made large numbers of staff redundant, Torygraph has called in the receivers, fewer and fewer people are watching Gammonite Balderdash News Cur James Dyson, Nigel Garbage, Dim Tim Wetherspoon, Ann Widdecombe. Rachel Johnson (sister of Satan’s Deputy) and 66% of Daily Express readers have stated that Brexit has gone horribly wrong. Meanwhile Keith Starmer insists he can ‘make Brexit work’ despite all the evidence to the contrary. Starmer is, essentially, giving us the same deceit and hypocrisy that Neo Nazi Tories and far left Trade Unionists have been giving us for years. Can Keith Starmer do what Neo Nazi Tories have failed to do?

Two: ‘Men without honour and women without virtue’ is a disparaging comment that has fallen into disuse because it is nowadays considered politically incorrect. For all that it may be out of step with the times it is a profoundly accurate way to describe the people who have inflicted this Brexit FUBAR on us. This is a good time for Johnson to go. He can quit politics secure in the knowledge that Keith Starmer is as hell bent on doing a Brexit FUBAR as the Tories are hell bent on doing a Brexit FUBAR. Tories got us into this mess by making promises they could not keep. Keith Starmer says he can get us out of this mess by repeating the same promises even though he knows full well that that these are promises that nobody can keep. In what way are Labour Party promises they cannot keep better than Tory Party promises they cannot keep? In what way is a Labour Party Brexit FUBAR better than a Tory Party Brexit FUBAR? In what way are Labour Party Brexit masturbation fantasies better than Tory Party Brexit masturbation fantasies? Why are we stuck with a ruling class that is hell bent on doing a FUBAR? 

Read Hard Labour

Three: In the language that Gammons, Flagshaggers and Tories speak the term ‘Move on’ is a euphemism for ‘Allow crimes to go unpunished.’ Why are Gammons, Flagshaggers and Tories so anxious to let crimes go unpunished? Similarly: Love Americans or hate those at least Federal Prosecutors have the brains, courage and decency to bring charges against Trump. Why is it that British prosecutors lack any kind of brains, courage and decency? 

Four: Torygraph has gone into receivership. Elon Musk has expressed an interest in buying it. Will this make the Torygraph more of a pack of lies or less of a pack of lies? 

Telegraph
The Torygraph. Return to sender. Click to read more.

Five. Rachel Johnson (sister of Satan’s Deputy). Recently commented that apart from Brexit and the Pandemic her adored brother got everything right. For the last three years Gammons and Flagshaggers have been telling us that they ‘Got the big calls right.’ Do we now understand that Brexit and the Pandemic are otherwise than ‘the big calls?’ 

Boris Johnson in the stocks
Boris Johnson in the stocks – Image by the brilliant James Rowland.

Read Brexit has failed

This week’s quotes: 

Fraud

Richy Scumbag’s new ‘anti fraud champion’ Antony Brown…. accepted £5,000 … from Jeffrey Archer – one of the most notorious frauds in British political history…. Polyco Healthline’s Covid record … supplying more than a million counterfeit masks … bagged profits of £40M last year… Blame Matt Hancock … everything is his fault. We always knew that he was a useless idiot; which is why we made him health secretary…

Sexual harassment 

How did Nadine Dorries react when Johnson was accused of covering up repeated incidents of sexual harassment by Tory Whip Chris Pincher … Dorries defends Johnson … a man who thinks he is above the law and the standards the rest of us are held to… Rape has long had the lowest charging rate of all crimes…. in recent years a precipitous drop in the number of cases that make it to court … reports of rape have increased exponentially … 

Last year a senior Daily Mail journalist … sacked after sexual investigation with junior trainee … pontificating of one pundit left colleagues gobsmacked  … propensity for harassing junior male staff … resulted in staff leaving with payouts … 

Sue Ellen Braverman’s speeding ticket 

… Grease Bogg laughed off questions about whether he speeds … message from corridors of power is that speeding is something that everybody does … provisional  statistics for 2022 reveal 136,000 road casualties including 1,659 deaths … 

We need a new industrial revolution 

Can Labour provide one? … Manufacturing peaked across G7 countries in the mid 1960s …our political elites did deindustrialisation long and hard … manufacturing in Germany and Japan contribute 20% and 17% … in Britain 9.7% … we have the smallest manufacturing sector in the G7 and is shrinking the fastest … restricted the UK’s ability to haul itself out of recession … only a productivity miracle will provide an escape hatch … too small to drive an economic turnaround … there are solutions but none of them have the slightest chance of boosting UK to pole position within 5 years … the easiest way to achieve Labour’s growth target would be to boost inward immigration beyond the already all time high … the deindustrialisation mania of the 1980s and 1990s left us strategically insecure … learning must begin with frank admission of what we do not know … 

Keith Starmer’s attempt to win over Daily Express readers by nailing his colours to threadbare Brexit flag

… Starmer accused the EU of stealing our dinner money on the basis of a Brexit that he voted for … Express readers cynical about attempt to win them round…  at event in Ely not one person thought Brexit was going well … Brexit is the worst act of self harm in the world’s development … direction of opinion polls is all one way at the moment …  timing of Keith Starmer’s article … adamantly sticking to his ‘make Brexit work’ approach all the more baffling … reality has caught up with Johnson lies and Nigel Garbage fantasies … ‘Christ! This is worse than anybody expected’ … Keith Starmer promises the ‘highest sustained growth in the G7 … not going to happen until we fix the damage Brexit has done … 

Read Myths and Riffs of Brexit

Johnson 

… resignation honours always pretty dodgy … Thick Lizzie’s list has also been put on definite hold… prospect of Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages being submitted as evidence to Covid enquiry is causing terror in the Cabinet Office … it is difficult to find ways to satirise this stuff … it would seem that whatever Johnson has just submitted is at least as damaging to his successors as it is to him… Schofield had an affair and lied about it … so did Johnson … Johnson lied about far more consequential things … Schofield is disgraced former TV presenter … why is Johnson never the disgraced former PM? … Schofield is a ruined, broken man … Johnson broke a country … plays the media like a fiddle, gets taxpayer to fund huge legal bills … buys a £4M house for cash …. Fights to put donors in the House of Lords…

Rupert Murdoch’s summer party 

Keen to demonstrate he is still breathing … dilemma for Keith Starmer … keen to ingratiate himself with Murdoch … also reluctant to alienate his natural base … 

Andrew Bridgen

… kicked out of Tory Party … sole Reclaim MP … predicted other Tories would be won over by Laurence Pox …remain in splendid isolation … Tories so unpopular people will vote for anybody who is not Tory … 

John Simpson 

BBC world affairs correspondent for 35 years … criticised BBC for giving too much air time to Brexiters … powers want the viewers to see him as little as possible…

Australia / NZ trade deals

… negligible contribution to British economy … not a good deal for the UK … gave far too much away for too little… 

National Conservatives

Knew their name would be abbreviated to NatCees and did it on purpose … human breach of the Ministerial Code Sue Ellen Braverman… 

Suella Braverman Priti Patel
Do you support killing children? Suella and Priti do.

Pandemic 

We are not ready for the next pandemic … Arcturus is the  latest variant of Covid 19 …surged across India …detected in more than 30 countries … pathogen is still mutating …We cannot afford to drop our guard … 227,000 fatalities recorded in Britain to date … compare to 454,000 Brits killed in WW2 …  twice the toll of the virus but over six years not three … Lady Hallett’s inquiry … reported as Westminster soap opera … Richy Scumbag might reflect on Richard Nixon  … reluctance to hand over tapes led to impeachment … For PM who promised ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability to make himself vulnerable to charge of cover up is madness … preparations for a future pandemic are in a wretched state … when not if … we are not ready … infrastructure developed during the crisis is being dismantled or defunded … deliberate government policy … Westminster recrimination and desperate Tory infighting … 

Covid 19 inquiry 

Commissions in other countries finished their reports…. In complexity, political sensitivity…. only Chilcott Iraq inquiry  compares … most sensational hearings will come Autumn 2023 … focus on Johnson and his inner circle …’why did you skip five meetings …. did you really suggests you should be injected with Covid on TV … obtaining evidence has become a circus … Witness statements patchy and late … silence and obfuscation … Inquiry is still in the dark … Britain was led into a crisis by an inadequate and distracted PM …

Richy Scumbag 

Setting up a public enquiry then withholding evidence looks like an admission of guilt … Scumbag’s approval ratings at -21 point (20 points worse than Keith Starmer’s) … Scumbag accepted that his election defeat is inevitable … what is happening in Scumbag’s government is so ill thought-through that it is hard to believe that a clever Goldman Sachs man is in charge … furlough loans … undue generosity to fake businesses that have since disappeared … no hope of being repaid … Tory party riven with divides for decades … Scumbag as reluctant as his predecessors to confront them … striving to keep far right Sue Ellen Braverman lovers sweet, while attempting to please more moderate Tories … grandstanding … not impressive … other European countries benefitting hugely … another Brexit ‘freedom’ that is damaging … glaring evidence that government takes a blinkered view ….dogmatic approach leads government in indefensible positions … selfish … short-sighted … if Tories sneak an election victory … he will find himself confronting the same problems, only even more deep seated … sound bites will have vanished along with the hopes they promised … Scumbag does not look like a man in charge … increasingly looks like one leaving after the next election for comfortable life in Santa Monica … 

Economists wring their hands over seaside towns 

Metropolitan politicians fret (their inhabitants were likeliest to vote for Brexit) … ‘Good Lord! This is ghastly?’ … populist tides that resulted in Brexit swelling in eastern coastal towns … fertile soil for resentment based cause … 

Join us in Clacton next Thu 22 June

Pip Pip             Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired)                       Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class 

Climate Change

Caroline Lucas

One day of Caroline Lucas’ life beats one year of a Tory life … perhaps that is an underestimate … I salute her on the occasion of her decision to stand down from politics in order to focus on more important priorities. In global terms, climate change is the single most important problem we face, with Brexit accelerating our sleepwalk into oblivion. Caroline has spoken in Parliament without fear or favour. I can only imagine the nuclear levels of hatred that this attracts from career politicians on all sides. In fact, I am aware of some of this. Labour contacts in her constituency despise her for standing up to property developers, by insisting on good environmental standards in construction and town planning. The pressure must be unbearable. Consequentially, I imagine Caroline has decided that there might be better ways to save planet earth. We shall see.

As I reach the autumn of my life, it seems right and proper to consider the legacy that one leaves behind. I have always had I basic hippy instinct that has guided me towards trying to leave the world in a better place than when I arrived. We can all do better always in life. Accordingly, I produced a piece of music in the hope that it inspires people to do better on our environmental stewardship and concern for planet earth.

I fear that planet earth may have given up on us …

but we must not give up on planet earth …

The piece was inspired by Greta Thunberg, to impress upon people the importance that everyone can do something to make the world a better place in terms of sustainability and environmental action. The music was set to film by a fantastic videographer called Al Clouston. The most important contribution you can make is to share this article and film widely with world leaders and people of influence.

‘How do we want to be remembered’ reminds us that we are all in charge of our own destiny. We are all in this together. If we choose to act in smaller or greater ways, we can make an impact for planet earth. Caroline Lucas epitomises the title of this piece of music.

With love and respect for whatever you choose to do next Caroline

Supporting Coats for Calais.

Check our interview with Green Party MEP Molly Scott-Cato

Read our books

Car crash special

Brexit bunker

Brexit breakdown

Don Adamson reports the news that the papers refuse to print. Don writes from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley.

When a child is born

This week’s homework: Discuss the following statements:

1. Johnson fanzine has announced that Princess Nut Nuts is expecting again. This is (says the Daily Mail) Johnson’s 8th child. There are probably more that we do not know of. Johnson objects to contraception for ecological reasons. He is against single use plastic. Gammons and flagshaggers will tell you that genetics count for more than experience or learning. That being Johnson and his ilk should be forcibly vasectomised.

2. Johnson is the diarrhoea that keeps on giving.

3. Discuss the following statement: ‘Gentlemen in England now abed will hold their manhood cheap and think themselves accursed they were not here.’ Shakespeare reckoned without Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes who brag about their superlative gallantry in wars that ended before they were born. Did Shakespeare get it wrong or is it more a case of Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes may be a lot of things but they are not gentlemen? 

Coincidence or cock up?

Have Patience

This week’s quotes: “Lady Patience Wheatcroft is not in favour with the Tories after shifting from the Tory benches to the cross benches and, while once reliably Conservative, has made her opposition to Brexit clear … after voting for Brexit Bournemouth is in deep remorse, with the Lib Dems establishing themselves as the dominant force on  the local council … Dorset Chamber of Commerce complained that Brexit was having ‘serious detrimental impact on exports’… not delivering the positives that were promised … Scotland may yet prove a steep uphill climb for Labour while it continues to be pro Brexit … don’t write off the SNP … Labour’s position on the EU and the Lib Dem’s ambivalence … will be an open door for The SNP at the next election … ‘Voter ID’ did not help the Tories … next they will stipulate that the only valid proof of ID will be a Tory Party membership card … inaugural conference of the Conservative Democratic organisation, convened by those Tories horrified by the sudden leftward lurch into outright Communism that the party has taken under Richy Scumbag (stop laughing) … Jacob Grease Bogg … perhaps still stung by the fact that during his tenure as Secretary of State for Brexit Opportunities he never found any …. started plucking Brexit benefits from his limited imagination … spectacular Bulwarks even by Grease Bogg standards …

Have Patience.

Anger is an energy

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is incensed … If Lindsay Hoyle is angry with Tories then they really are running out of friends … Johnson leans on rich friends for freebies … on 25 separate occasions since August he has passed through Heathrow airports palatial Windsor Suite. At £1,800 a pop the suite is part of Heathrow’s VIP experience. He has received almost £50,000 in lounge hospitality alone …£250,000: Johnson’s legal fees funded by the taxpayer…. £2.5M advance Johnson received from speaking agency in January … 

Surrey Heath council covers Gove’s constituency was won by the Lib Dems … Reigate and Banstead is now the only council in Surrey where Tories have a majority . Right across the stockbroker belt Tory ministers and ex ministers saw control of councils go to the Lib Dems’… another example of this government’s neglect and mismanagement…

Abandon ship

NHS is now so overloaded that delays and human errors are inevitable and increasing … subject to aggressive litigation … as if doctors needed another reason to abandon the NHS …  a recent survey by the Medical Protection society of doctors who had been reported to the GMC in the past five years … nearly a third had experienced suicidal thoughts … NHS has always been reliant on overseas trained doctors, even more so now that many UK trained doctors are leaving …

GMC has adopted 23 recommendations to stamp out bias against ethnic minority doctors. A greater problem is that GMC expects impossibly high standards of performance in a crumbling health service with more complaining patients … workload is higher than the service can competently manage … Regime’s ineptitude. Hobbled by Cronyism and graft … economy is creating fewer opportunities … less direct foreign investment …  danger of accelerating, perhaps violent, decline …

Nowhere man

We have no clue what Starmer really believes in … will not tell us what our post Brexit relationship with EU should be … Britain’s Public Order Act goes too far … UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it imposed ‘serious and undue restriction’ … fears of erosion of civil liberties in Britain … Further indication of Home Office authoritarian tendencies …. a law does not need to put people in prison to do damage … further eroding trust in the police following a series of dreadful scandals at the Met … badly written law … hard to justify a move to Britain … Britain’s car industry is another pressure point ….

Under pressure

Steelmaking is also under strain …  too many unanswered questions … Brexit upheavals add to uncertainty. …  Over 2M British homes suffer from disrepair that pose a risk to public health … costs to NHS estimated at £290M a year …Tories and Britain would like to forget about Thick Lizzie … on tour … to chide the enemies of freedom and stand up to China … given her record it is surprising people listen to her … calls for an ‘economic NATO to stand up to China … (COMMENT: There is one: the EU) … Thick Lizzie may be the least successful PM in British history … emblematic of deeper problems in government … complains about having no control (COMMENT: Surely that is the whole point of Brexit?) … 

Private Eyelines
Extract from Private Eyelines – click to view.

Migration observatory

Braverman complains about 1M immigrants to UK this year without mentioning that she is responsible …  Thick Lizzie is a problem for the Tories not because she is the exception but because she is the rule … her ideas live on … Johnson intervenes only if he thinks it will enhance his slim chances of a return to power … loony economic policies … Fox News fired *ucker Carlson … viewership fell from 3M during his final week to 1.5 the following week … biggest beneficiary has been Newsmax, even further right than Fox … viewership rose from 150,000 to nearly 500,000 ..

Praise the Lords

Loss of Carlson’s divisive populism has led 1.15M people to abandon conservative cable news in prime time…  Performance in the House of Lords by Lord Johnson of Lainston … caused despair even on Tory benches … decline in car manufacturing is an especially depressing example of Brexit affecting industry … Johnson saw it as an opportunity to take puerile swipes at the EU … disturbing comments by Cur James Dyson (COMMENT: notorious Brexiter) that the government was not on the side of industry …

Lord Fox (Lib Dems) said industry was at a watershed … car manufacturers would simply go to France or Germany … one Tory peer said waves of political appointees have made Tory benches a laughing stock … worst fears for the Lords realised … gift for the abolitionists ….

Gammon corner

All Perspectives is still pumping money into GB News despite £33M losses … takes funds injected by investors to  £120M … Who can explain what Labour’s economic policy is? … numbers raising their hands to answer alarmingly low … at Derby …’Is Brexit going well or badly? Result Well 0% Badly 100% … Same in Edinburgh and Glasgow … populists love to inflame their fellow believers with slogans, myths for a past that never was … recent National Conservative conference  highlighted the threat of the far right … most mainstream Tories wisely stayed away.

Why Michael Gove chose to appear is baffling (COMMENT: Not baffling to me – Gove is a Murdoch lackey of the worst description) … strange and unsettling London conference … home to an evangelical Christian church … Johnson was hardly more popular than Scumbag…. inward looking, illiberal, censorious conservatism … nostalgia for a rose tinted past … fuelled by anger, pessimism, paranoia and disdain for any who disagree …  portray opponents as sinister and evil. Object furiously when the same accusations are levelled at them … demonisation of anybody to the left of them; which is probably 95% of the British population….

Nat-C Party

NATcees assertion of moral superiority … no acknowledgement that they have won four successive elections and might themselves be responsible for the dire state of the nation … Braverman distanced herself from an immigration which she has been in charge of for 7 months … Johnson was the embodiment of selfish reckless individualism that they now decry … Rees Mogg did admit that requiring ID cards to votes was a failed attempt at gerrymandering … hailed Brexit … none thought fit to mention the calamitous consequences of Brexit … has actually boosted immigration …

Braverman castigated the ‘prognosticators of doom’ who said Brexit would be a catastrophe … Tory Party beginning to fragment into warring factions as it faces an electoral drubbing … an ugly search for scapegoats … sensible Conservatives stayed away … 

Don Adamson Pip Pip             Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class    

Read more : Brexit under the microscope 

From the vault : Five years of Brexit

Later with Jools Holland

Today we visited Cooling Castle, home of Jools Holland with the Bollocks to Brexit Mini Cooper. Here is a report from our resident maritime consultant and Brexit sea dog Don.

At Cooling Castle

I arrived at the rendezvous at 5 bells in the Afternoon Watch. That is 14.30 for landlubbers and when the big hand is on the six and the little hand is on the two for Gammons and Tories. My fellow Saboteurs came separately. For those who have not been paying attention “Saboteur” is the term of derision that Gammons and Tories chose to refer to decent people who oppose Brexit. The term quickly fell out of favour in Gammon and Tory circles when we pointed out that “Saboteur” was what Vichyites called the French Resistance. Comparing me to the French Resistance is about the nicest thing anybody ever said about me. I took it as a compliment: Vive les Saboteurs! “Vive la Resistance” Merde a Brexit!

Alo’ Vera – Brexit’s Comin’ ‘Ome

The Bulwarks to Brexitmobile led the convoy and we drove around the environs. We set up a stall in Gillingham High Street near the church and our musical director set up his gear and serenaded us with anti-Brexit music. I chose a spot where I could keep a look out for Gammons, Tories and nobbled coppers. We did not hand out leaflets for social distancing reasons. I saw somebody advance purposefully towards our musical director. I thought I might be needed but I did the newcomer an injustice. He wanted to get involved. Took a couple of our flags and joined in the fun.

Nigel Farage’s Garage – one of the songs we performed on the street

A few people gave filthy looks and made vulgar gestures then moved on quickly. For the most part people were supportive, gave the thumbs up and wanted to photograph us. After a while we set off for Rochester. It was much the same there. Some people walked off pointedly refusing to look at us while others gave the thumbs up. By this time my old knee injury was playing up so I decided to call it a day. I can walk for miles and feel better for it but standing around plays havoc with my old injuries.

People in Ashford are unhappy about recent developments. It has sunk in that Brexit is going to cause delays at Customs so this hopeless inept government is setting up a huge lorry park for stranded trade vehicles. The site had been chosen for a new Amazon facility that would have provided employment. Instead they are going to get trucks belching diesel fumes because the drivers will need to run the engines to keep refrigeration plants working. That will not improve the atmosphere at all. This is not the earthly paradise that the people of East Kent thought they would get when they voted for Brexit.

The Brexit Mindset summed up

Tomorrow we go to Tunbridge Wells on a circular tour starting at 11.00:

Route will include London Rd, High St, Sainsbury car park, Mt Pleasant, Town Hall,  Monson Rd, Camden Rd, Powdermill Lane, Southboro High St. Then back down St John’s Rd, Mt Ephraim Rd, brief stop at Victoria Place, back up Lime Hill to London Rd.

There remains a possibility to visit Hythe and East Kent later on tomorrow