This list will probably be out of date by the time it is published. Thank you to my musical chum Dr Mike Alexander for sending me this list. Fear of losing one’s seat is a powerful motivator and the Tories have run to the hills to quote Iron Maiden. Order our leaflets to end Tory rule.
Douglas Ross – Moray (announced 14/10/21)
Charles Walker – Broxbourne (announced 2/2/22)
Crispin Blunt – Reigate (announced 1/5/2022)
Mike Penning – Hemel Hempstead (announced 17/5/2022)
Adam Afriyie – Windsor (announced 22/7/2022)
Andrew Percy – Brigg and Goole (announced 8/11/2022)
Chloe Smith – Norwich North (announced 22/11/2022)
William Wragg – Hazel Grove (announced 22/11/2022)
Gary Streeter – South West Devon (announced 25/11/2022)
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.
As we continue our sleepwalk into fascism via Michael Gove’s weaponisation of protest, I was extremely saddened by the news that Tim Evans died at the age of 63 a few days ago. Tim was a great pro-EU / anti-Brexit campaigner who never missed an opportunity to influence someone. For some reason unknown to me, I decided to go for a train and bicycle road trip to Teynham (Brexit central) to reflect on his life. Thinking about Tim’s example to never miss a moment, I also decided to renew the signage on my bike. I know that such things are conversation starters, much in the way that Tim would confront even the most difficult people at Parliament. I was not dissappointed. The ticket collector on the train immediately commented on the sign:
HE “There’s no point. The French won’t let us back.”
ME “Really?
HE “My wife is French and she says it’s all over the French media.”
I could have simply said “all?” or “what’s all over the French media / which media?” but was about to leave the train so I went with a direct challenge to establish some hierarchy (Not that clever in the scheme of things but tempus fugit etc. and it stopped him in his tracks)
ME “I’ve written three books on the topic and spoken with Michel Barnier. It does not matter what the right wing media say here (or in France), I’m afraid that you are talking twaddle”
HE “It’s just that my wife is French” (he thought he could get a cheap shot in and realises that he has come up against a brick wall)
I muttered a few things more and repeated the word twaddle. He wandered off up the carriage. A few minutes later I decided to give him a card as I left the train, saying in front of several other people: “Look, have a look at the website. There’s 400 films, several thousand articles and three books there. get an education”.
On reflection I suspected that this man was a slightly desperate leaver trying to use his French wife as a human shield for his views. He was also slightly trapped by his need for courtesy as a ticket collector. I admit that my intervention was little crude, but time was short and I was in no mood for appeasement, having thought ‘what would Tim have done?’. Every conversation counts.
Bicycle signage that opens difficult conversations.
Imagine my surprise when I got off the train. A man with a can of JD and Coke approached me on the platform and got in the lift with me. I felt another unpromising conversation coming on ….
HE (looking at the bike sign) “One sign isn’t going to change anything.”
ME “I have more.”
HE “I’m just saying that one sign’s not enough”. (At this point I had thought that this chap may be another Brexiteer – how wrong I was).
I explained a little of my work and that the sign was just a very small part of the whole). He then said:
“We should have never have left”.
We then had a conversation on the platform and I offered him my card which he was very grateful for. What a great surprise and a justification of my decision to celebrate Tim’s life by upping my game a bit on a cold day in Spring.
I cycled on to The Chequers in Lewson Street without meeting anyone or discussing Brexit, giving myself a moment of peace to reflect on Tim’s passing. We were about to meet for coffee at Charlotte and Ginger in Leatherhead after Tim refused to meet Gina Miller with me, saying that he’d been badly let down by her a while back. We had agreed to restrict ourselves to looking back over performing songs together at Downing Street, driving people crazy with the Bollocks to Brexit Mini and more mayhem. Tim was a one off, much better than some of the London elites who attempt to tell us how we must behave, many of whom have never met a Brexiteer, let alone interacted with them. Tim was real force of nature who had a great sense of musical theatre and a real understanding of the use of the absurd as a way into the inner sanctums of Brexiteers. I recall that he also used to upset some of the snowflakes at Parliament with his ‘Benny Hill’ styled lyrical rewrites of popular songs. I recall people used to report Tim to me hoping I would censor him. I never did. Now we have laws against extremism as a result of appeasement!! Will the pc middle classes of middle England ever get a little bit angry or learn how to use satire to reach past people’s heads to their hearts, souls and arse souls?
Tim Evans as Sir Francis Drake – also featuring Clive Lewis R.I.P.
Morals of the stories
You can get a lot done in a little time if you are prepared.
Never assume that people cannot be persuaded.
Be visual. Find ways to start the Brexit conversation on every street corner, cafe, pub etc. This is the gentle art of Brexorcism.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of Brexit and we’ve nothing to show for it. The last remaining Brexiteers tell me that ‘it’s too soon to say’ – of course that’s rubbish, four years is plenty of time for some formative evaluation across the STEEPLE factors. They also say that people like me have thwarted Brexit … I never realised I had so much power !!… In case of amnesia, we were sold Brexit in 2016 with a brochure that promised ONLY sunny uplands and NO downsides. Neither have materialised. Meanwhile the dead cats are out in force : Vaping, Conscription, Rwanda, Cheese, Hanging … the list goes on in the Daily Excess, the Daily Maul and The Son. Brexit has failed. The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit. We can and must join EU anew as a priority.
Click to read Gina Miller’s piece in the New European today.
The comments below come from Linkedin in response to a post by The Crocodile Club. They are ‘one of a kind’ as the sum up the sheer desperation of the last remaining Brexiteers. They also bear testimony to the poverty of what I call ‘online Brexorcisms’. By definition these people are the extremists and I’m always more interested in the silent majority. Matthew deserves the chance to read what he wrote again. I pity his employer. He has become trapped by the quasi religion of Brexit.
When you lose the argument, attack the crocodile …
When you cannot answer the question, gaslight away from the question …
When you have REALLY lost the argument, just insult the messenger …
These below are some of the reasons why online Brexorcisms are often ineffective taken from my book Reboot Britain. It is a social process, not a social media process. We are fast approaching the point where a super majority believe that Brexit has failed. Once that happens, politicians have to listen or lose their seats. Labour are complicit in the radio silence on the matter, as are the Lib Dems who have copped out by saying that we’ll rejoin ‘at some time in the future. Simply dodging the question.
Don Adamson is a seasoned anti-Brexit activist with a unique style that takes no prisoners. Read his work carefully – it has many facts sometimes hidden beneath his rants. As a senior citizen I feel no urge to edit him or apologise for the acidic manner of his posts that come straight from the heart of Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – People all over the country are angry about the way that the Post Office treated its employees in the matter of the Horizon/Fujitsu computer system. What is interesting is that trashy Murdoch and Rothermere newspapers are blaming Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats) and Keith Starmer (Labour Party) for everything. It may well be that Davey and Starmer have some questions to answer. Is there a reason why Trashy Murdoch and Rothermere newspapers have completely failed to ask the questions that Tory Cabinet Ministers need to answer: for instance – Richy Scumbag’s wife is a big shareholder in Fujitsu? It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence that Fujitsu’ behaviour is unpardonable.
Two – The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has reported that diplomats posted overseas do not return to this country because Britain is in such a post Brexit mess. Diplomats posted overseas get jobs locally and settle down. Is this something we should encourage because of big reductions in the FCO travel budget; FCO only needs to buy one way fares?
Three – In the late 1960s Harold Wilson had a lot to say about the ’13 years of Tory misrule’ that preceded his government. After a while this was counterproductive because it was too easy an excuse. Is it fair to say that Tory Cabinet Ministers in period 1951 to 1964 were infinitely superior in every way to the Cabinet Ministers we have had since 2010?
Four – John Kenneth Galbraith was quoted as saying that economic forecasts existed to make astrology look reliable. Has this statement ever been truer than in the case of economic forecasts to the effect that Brexit can be made to work?
This week’s quotes
Thick Lizzie being allowed an honours list was a joke
… peerages to Tory donors no laughing matter … Tories cannot even get the simple stuff right, Scumbag could never resist an opportunity to be too clever by half …not appointments that will encourage greater trust in British political system … shameless abuse that lays bare the ridiculousness of how UK appoints peers … obvious that Tories will shameless abuse the system for as long as they can … cringe worthy … having honours with ‘Empire’ in the title in 2024 … problem with the honours system heightened by the low calibre of people in office …
Liz Truss – Songs of the Siren.
Four failed PMs in four years
… ‘alternative facts’ … lies go unchallenged … Tories have forgotten which party has been in office since 2010 … untrue statements unchallenged, there is no hope …
Daily Mail leader column
… looking back on 13 years in power it is difficult to pinpoint any Tory achievements … people are deeply dissatisfied with this government…
Click to read Private Eyelines.
War in the Ukraine poses an increasingly awkward dilemma for Richy Scumbag
… father in law prizes relationship with Indian PM Narendra Modi … Modi professes to be neutral on Ukraine … is chummy with Putain … British spooks nervous about UK cooperation with India not least intelligence and intellectual property … could well end up in Russian hands …
Israeli Supreme Court has the power to strike down changes
… where the Knesset has clearly overstepped the mark…. Stern rebuke to Netanyahu…. amid widespread protest … coalition government had succeeded in forcing through only its abolition of the reasonableness standard. Now the court has put an end to that initiative too…
Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, is heir to a long history of ambivalence towards Europe
… was asked ‘when would Britain Rejoin EU … ‘No! No! No! You don’t get it. … The constitutional question is closed … Many Labour voters would cheer reintegration with EU. 78% of them think Brexit was a mistake. Brexit is a drag on growth … Ms Reeves represents the dominant strain of thinking in Labour Party: not Europhilia but Europhobia … In Ms Reeve’s telling Leave voters had a point … Labour is Euro-agnostic on economics … long history of Labour Europhobia … Can a party that has promised the fastest growth in the G7 afford to be ambivalent about Britain’s largest trading partner? … Europhobia breeds naivety about European Leader’s appetite for a new deal with Britain. It would require of Labour hard diplomatic graft, a willingness to spend political capital and a vision that is currently lacking … A first Labour government is likely to yield a few worthwhile improvements in the relationship with the EU. … The day may come when Labour sees no alternative … to serious integration … price to be paid, reluctantly … for a higher standard of living…
Tories are addicted to lies
… On 1 January thousands of people woke up to finding an email attempting to con them out of their cash … recipients, drawn from a list of supposed Tory supporters … to send£10 to help fund the Tory Party …. Reasoning would embarrass the most thick skinned confidence tricksters…. Brexit done, Corbyn defeated, 20,000 extra police officers taxes down, inflation down, investment up, economy up … Outrageous falsehoods … Brexit is about as done as an oven ready turkey with a cook who forgot to turn on the oven. Ardent Gammons are in revolt over perceived failure … injuries, injustices confusion that continue to escalate … in 2019 inflation was 1.3% … now 3.9% … extraordinarily damage Thick Lizzie premiership inflation rocketed to 11.1 % … hundreds of thousands of people have seen their mortgages soar… higher borrowing costs by 2026 … Disease that is endemic in Tory Party, lying …. PM recent claims on asylum breached the line so egregiously that Office for Statistics felt obliged to investigate … Richy Scumbag has endeavoured to distance himself from Johnson, whose relationship with the truth was never in doubt: Johnson does not believe in truth…. clear that Scumbag is intent on misleading the country…
Scumbag’s government lacks democratic legitimacy
Majority was won on Johnson’s manifesto whose credibility evaporated…. Thick Lizzie’s disastrous 49 days in office … flat lining economy … meaningless pledges, manic rants, rancid attacks on ‘wokeness’ …global economy adrift … worsening geopolitical crisis … we have a powerless government … £17B black hole in defence equipment budget, … no long term investment for business … Brexit means that all Britain’s chokes are hard. Investment flat lining, growth stagnant … there is a malaise, a despondency, routine cynicism, nastiness. … Only once Labour wins will we know how bad things are … We deserve better than the games Richy Scumbag is playing…
Demonic Shortcummings
… income exceeded £140,000 in glory days with Johnson … fallen dramatically … his consultancy firm racked up £84,287 since he founded it two years ago … Shortcummings owes the firm £79,431 … Lee Cain, Shortcummings former partner … has £689,086 …
Cummings and Goings
Lib Dem panic after ITV drama ‘Mr Bates versus the Post Office’
… brought Ed Davey’s inertia over the scandal into focus … a poll on X social media site asked if Davey should lead the Lib Dems into the election … 84.% of people who voted said no ….
Madness of Brexit
… crooks, charlatans brought the madness into being by lying convincingly enough to… persuade people to vote against their own interests … never ending expanding downsides of Brexit … press, especially the right wing majority … has been a significant contributor to the mess the country is in … dumbed down political debate … normalisation of lying and corruption in public life …nationalism masquerading as patriotism … newspapers that exist to help the powerful to maintain and develop their wealth … rather than speak the truth … Johnson style lying …, Thick Lizzie style vandalism … Mone style profiteering … Brexit cheerleaders continue to erode their credibility by endless telling readers that it is not going so badly as the facts indicate … They know it but they just cannot bring themselves to say it … that would be to tell the truth and they have lost that habit … Richy Scumbag is closer to Johnson than to Cameron …
Labour must keep green pledges
… unlikely as it may seem there is one person in this country who seems to believe that Richy Scumbag is popular … unfortunately that man is leader of the opposition … Starmer is determined to import the worst traits of Richy Scumbagism … idiocy and self harm on a scale that could easily undermine Labour’s commanding position.
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
A landmark judgement was made recently that allows British Citizens in Europe (EU Britizens) a vote in elections. Some 3.8 million people are affected by this decision which could have easily swung the Brexit referendum away from the tragedy of Brexit. Grateful thanks to Julien Fouchet, Grazia Valentino-Boschi and Alice Boulliez who have pursued this case relentlessly over an extended period. This from Gina Miller explains what you need to do about the opportunity.
The 2024 general election represents a real opportunity to create a movement that gives people a positive political choice including all Brits abroad.
If you are living abroad, irrespective of length of time, you are now able to register to vote in the 2024 General Election. It is more important than ever that you use this opportunity to vote, make your voice heard and ensure your interests, values and beliefs are represented.
If you’ve got all the information needed to hand, you can register in under 10 minutes! Read on:
Eligibility
In order to be eligible to register as an overseas voter for the general election you will need to:
Be a British, Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizen.
Have been previously registered to vote in the UK and/or previously resident in the UK.
More information about eligibility can be found here.
What you need to register
To register you will need:
Proof of ID: you will need your date of birth and your National Insurance number, you may also need to give details of a current or expired British passport. If you have lost your NI number, you can search for it here.
The last UK address where you were registered to vote, or the last UK address at which you resided (if you were not registered to vote in the UK before you left). STOP PRESS : Grazia tells me that there is no need for proof of address from those who’ve already registered so it’s even easier!!
You may need to provide additional evidence to support your application if your identity/address cannot be verified. Your registration will last for 3 years before needing to be renewed.
How to register
You can register online on the GOV.UK website. If you have all the information to hand this should take under 10 minutes. You can also apply by post.
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
Don Adamson reports from the Brexit Bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – There is a nasty war happening in Western Congo that involves Rwanda. Is this what the Tories mean when they say that Rwanda is a safe place?
Two – There has been a strike in Hollywood caused by Artificial Intelligence being used to write scripts and to replace actors. In the Novel ‘1984’ George Orwell predicted a future where pornography would be written by robots. Did Orwell write ‘1984’ as a dire warning or as a training manual for dubious politicians and robber baron capitalists?
Three – In Britain we get a tiny fraction of the refugees and asylum seekers that go to other countries. Why do we get so hot and bothered by such a non problem?
Brexit Migration Algorithm
Four – Discuss the following statement – Ordure is a biological necessity. Gammons are an expensive disaster.
Five – This New Year is different. We have two honours’ list instead of just one. In addition to the standard list we have Thick Lizzie’s resignation honours. I have heard of rewarding failure but that is ridiculous. Neither list refers to the knighthood that Nigel Garbage craves nor his bootlickers demand. There is a persistent rumour that there is some deep dark secret in Nigel Garbage’s past that renders him unfit for an honour. That is incredible. These Tories have scattered medals and other decorations on the most utterly deplorable people. What on each did Nigel Garbage do that disqualifies him from receiving some kind of decoration from these Tories – cannibalism? Human sacrifice?
Six – Discuss the following statement. It is a pretty state of affairs when our best hope is to vote Labour in the expectation that Keith Starmer is telling lies about Rejoin.
Seven – Is there any truth in the rumour that Kim Il Sung of North Korea refused the peerage that Johnson offered him? They say that even Kim has some standard.
Eight – Netanyahu is furious because the Israeli Supreme Court is making efforts to obstruct illegality by Netanyahu’s thugs. Do you think there will ever be lawyers in Britain with the brains, courage and decency to obstruct illegality by Richy Scumbag and his criminals?
Nine – Rupert Murdoch assures us that Brexit is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious success. Everybody in this country is rejoicing in the sunlit uplands that we all expected. Why then do the heroes of Brexit, notably Nigel Garbage, go everywhere accompanied by Thuggish minders when it simply cannot be possible that the heroes of Brexit have anything to fear?
… that BBC would get an independent chair … Samir Shah looks unlikely to impress … what a creep Samir was … he was a goon …
Dirty Media
… riddled with foreign ownership … Telegraph and Spectator back in hands of Barclay family … debt to Lloyds bank paid by US investment fund … bank is happy … nobody else … financed by Abu Dhabi … given assurances there will be no interference … government and press unconvinced … journalists in open revolt … nice to have a British owner … Brits with huge amounts to squander on dying industry thin on the ground … Press ownership in serious need of scrutiny … never happen under Tories … unlikely under Labour … remember all those assurances when Murdoch bought Times? … Telegraph has form on suppressing news … UAE involvement will pollute media … threaten society and freedom of expression … News Group … hacking and illegal information gathering … aim was to interfere with business of government … spying on ministers for commercial gain … knowingly repeating lies … unacceptable … yet stock in trade in Murdoch companies …
Government’s migration plans … cruel mess that will harm British business…
Nigel Garbage
… unflushable turd of British politics … no talents except self publicity and exacerbating ethnic tensions …
Farage’s Garage on the M20.
PPE Scandal
… Michael Gove did insist that all procurement decisions went through a ‘painstaking process by teams of civil servants’ … that is not how the Commons public accounts committee saw it … ‘perhaps the most shameful episode in government response to pandemic … splurged huge amounts of money … obscenely inflated prices … chaotic .. Chucked out even the most cursory due diligence’…
Westminster’s second favourite blonde truth dodger
… Nadine Dorries has been plugging her memoir ‘The Plot’ … critics have dubbed it ‘Lost the Plot’ … tawdry world of Westminster power broking … factual errors … errors of interpretation … omissions that undermine the credibility of the main thesis … eye poppingly extraordinary book … fails to ring true … by repeatedly adding two and two and getting 666 Dorries reinforces every paranoid fantasy … surreal document … tired regime fading away like the gas released by a dead body …
Nigel Garbage not proving a winner for his Fortune and Freedom financial newsletter
… Southbank part of the Agora Group … targeted by US regulators … prey on consumers … misleading deceptive claims … fake miracle cures … get rich quick schemes … Garbage backed Bitcoin as an investment … it was then $18,000 … later hit a record $64,000 then nosedived … they are coming for your money … certainly true of Nigel Garbage’s friends at Southbank Investment …
Tory Party has changed Britain
… the absence of chaos seems like competence … the unthinkable seems acceptable … A PM should not be a relief because he did not blow up the financial markets in a month… not normal for a British government to suspend human rights legislation, ignore international law … Britain needs stability … neither Tories nor Richy Scumbag can deliver it … Rwanda policy is impractical and unprincipled … Britain has paid Rwanda £240M without sending a single migrant to Rwanda … scheme is unusually mean … unsafe, shameful … a sensible PM in a sensible party would long ago have retreated on Rwanda … Scumbag has a technocratic manner that disguises two truths … he has a weakness for silly ideas, true believer in Brexit, was a supporter of Johnson … fond of gimmicks … second truth is that he is not very good at politics … set himself up as an agent of change but brought back David Cameron … pointless row with the Greeks over the Elgin Marbles … sacked a Home Secretary he should never have appointed … Rwanda started out as a whim … Scumbag turned it into a totem … opposition to the European Court of Human Rights has become a test of purity … even though Russia was the last to leave … Scumbag is using a deeply flawed bill to force through a bad policy … giving the Labour Party an easier ride than it deserves … humiliation for Scumbag … different set of Tory values … authoritarian … disdain for checks and balances … Whimsy became policy … concern from officials overruled … evidence of deterrent effect uncertain … factionalism, self absorbed back benchers and enormous payments to foreign governments …. Careerists sense opportunity in rallying to the right … hope of getting flights airborne forlorn … magical thinking … not grounded in reality … reads like a line from a fairy tale … means nothing good…
If Labour wins the next election it will inherit a mess
… easy for Keith Starmer to forge close links with Brussels … 8 out 10 Labour voters want to Rejoin … Britain has been chaotic for ten years… yet to have an agenda … Labour putting a lot of effort into looking ready for government … increasing doubts … is it real substance or just spin … many in the party feel Labour has no real idea of what it will actually do … Starmer needs a battle plan … best response to Starmer’s ‘clever stance’ on Brexit … we are asked to vote for somebody saying the opposite of what we believe based on the assumption that this person is lying … horrific state for politics to be in …
… accused the government of legislation so divorced from reality that it might as well claim dogs are cats … belief that saying something instantly makes it a fact is a dangerous tendency … seems to be a common affliction in politicians … looks like an attempt to hoodwink the public … this government’s appalling record of telling whoppers…. would reduce the Advertising Standards Authority to apoplexy … ministers hope the public will not notice … we are told the Rwanda scheme is worth the escalating millions of pounds … Scumbag has cast a shadow over his integrity … Brexit has seen the politicians peddling the greatest fairy stories … all a mirage … fairytale ..
Rwanda Scheme
… remains Richy Scumbag’s obsession … dreadful strategy … by any means necessary … ludicrous … disgrace … Tories know full well … it is performative cruelty and a flagrant betrayal of the Tory Party’s ancestral commitment to the rule of law … Scumbag’s appeared at Atreju Festival in Rome – Glastonbury of the international hard right … For a Tory once described as a centre ground technocrat … Scumbag has cultivated a taste for the hard right … Britain is in terrible shape … yet nothing seems more important than ‘stopping the boats’ … the true Brexit dividend : an exhausted, morally bankrupt government that is … fight for survival with a populist gimmick that is ethically repugnant, pointlessly costly and almost certain to fail in the courts … restorative nostalgia for monoculture Britain that never truly existed …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
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 spreads some Brexit Christmas cheer from his bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – Discuss the following statement: The controversy over the Elgin Marbles could have been resolved easily enough if the curators of the British Museum had been allowed to discuss it with their opposite numbers in Athens. Instead Richy Scumbag decided to turn it in an international p*****g to impress Gammons and Flagshaggers.
Two – Did George Orwell write ‘1984’ as a dire warning or as a training manual for Johnsonite Tories?
Three – Princess Nut Nuts (sometimes known as Carrie Johnson) was described in the Covid Inquiry as behaving like Lady Macbeth. Is this a fair comment or was Lady Macbeth a much nicer person?
Four – Recent edition of Question Time was held in Kelso; on the Scottish side of the border. BBC goes to a lot of trouble to ensure that the QT audiences are predominantly pro Brexit and pro Tory. How did they manage that in Scotland?
Five – Johnson has been described as ‘a useless tosser.’ Is that on a good day?
Six – Should Gammons and Tories bog off back to Russia where they belong?
Seven – Gammons and Flagshaggers insist that the world owes them a living for their heroism in wars that ended before they were born. Which bit of that does Biden not get?
Eight – WW2 has been a regular fixture on British television for many years. This explains why lowlifes like Johnson and Nigel Garbage are the misapprehension that they have received multiple awards of the Victoria Cross for their heroism in wars that ended before they were born. The more I see of Brexit the better I understand what happened in pre WW2 Germany. For some reason we do not see many 1950s vintage movies of Churchill roaring defiance at the bad guys. What we do see are TV documentaries that explain in great detail how Nazis nobbled a great country. Why is this happening on a BBC that is strictly under the control of Johnsonite Tories? You would expect this BBC to pander to Johnson’s misapprehension that he is Churchill reincarnated.
This week’s quotes
Thatcher may have come late to Euro scepticism but she certainly threw herself into it
… in thrall to her supposed economic success… Tory Regimes have carried on with this disastrous course … the cupboard is empty and bills are due … Thatcher set in course the destruction of this country …
I wonder how many people who voted for Brexit saw the spike in migration coming
… we are allowing in more non EU migrants … we are also allowing in more overseas students to prop up underfunded university sector … this will increase … How richly ironic. Brexit has opened the door to more immigration, not closed it…
Brexit Migration Algorithm
Covid inquiry has shone a light on government’s pandemic response
… now it is time for a scrutiny of Brexit … same reckless fools were in charge … even Titans would have struggled … dark chaos of Johnson … was frighteningly obvious … casual, complacent, determinedly ignorant and jingoistic leadership … hopeless … bewildered ministers … Brexit deal was being negotiated at the same time … incompetent government … Brexit deal that is as calamitous as response to pandemic … nightmarish … determined by shallow ‘British exceptionalism’ … Johnson struggled to take Covid seriously … at same time did not bother to contemplate the tortuous details of Brexit … Johnson’s erratic attention span taken up wholly with demands of Covid … Lord Frost made Mad Halfcock look like Bismarck and Churchill combined … Cummings encourage out of depth Frost to be aggressive … when EU proposed a deal mutually beneficial … Frost would loftily reject it … Cummings gone by November 2020 leaving bewildered Frost to please Johnson alone … Johnson was indifferent to detail … seeking a fantasy Brexit where Britain would recover past glories … disgracefully doting media elevated Johnson to status of war hero … no discussions in Cabinet … Keith Starmer did not ask a single question about Brexit … serious consequences for UK in many ways for years to come … doubt that Johnson read the deal passed to him on Christmas Eve … was he playing a poker game … bluffing … probably did not know himself … Frost … politically naive … unworkable protocol for Northern Ireland … Johnson ran away from scrutiny all his life … briefly ran a government where he was omnipotent … deeply damaging … sought the hardest of Brexits without knowing what that meant …
A Britastrophe
‘Fearless’ Tory press meekly ducked criticism of Johnson and Richy Scumbag
… ‘let people die’ … ‘They’ve had a good innings’ … Downing St was a hive of tragic chaos … dystopian nightmare … incompetent ministers lied … claimed the authority to play God … orgy of narcissism … toxic culture of misogyny … Johnson incapable of making a decision … bamboozled by statistics and numbers …. hiding behind science which he did not understand … Covid still a factor in 300 deaths a week … sensational and scandalous material … editors spoiled for choice … Johnson did not think old people’s lives mattered … language shocking but not shocking enough to make the Tory Press … possibly because they agreed with the sentiments … Tory Press … did not shine much light on accusations of ministerial dithering … shy away from anything that shows Tories in a less than brilliant light … not one mentioned Johnson wanting to leave old people to die .. Chaos and incompetence…
November 8, the day that Georgia was recommended for EU candidacy status
… obtaining EU candidacy status is not only a significant step towards realising the European aspirations of Georgian but also a vital means of diminishing Russia’s influence in Georgia … support for membership across civil society has always been some of the strongest in the region … after Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, it immediately became clear how much of a threat the Kremlin truly posed … for Georgians joining the EU will have deep consequences. November 8 was a huge day for the people of Georgia, a historic day when my country made a step towards the EU and away from Moscow. It is what we have wanted for decades…
Alastair Darling
… If there is one lesson from his life and times it is this: politics needs good, honest, principled, hard working, serious people more than it has ever needed them…..
Mad Halfcock, as Health Secretary
… assured Dominic Cummings that full pandemic contingency plans were in place – but they claimed under cross examination that they were not up to scratch. This is why Cummings, in June 2021 said no plans had been in place … an assertion that mystified staff at Porton Down … that is the whole reason why we have Porton Down, where they have long recognised that that a pandemic is the number one threat on the risk register … they war gamed pandemics and shared their ideas with Europe, Singapore, the Gulf States etc, … ironically some of them put Porton Down’s ideas into practice and looked back at us mystified why we were not doing what we had advised … Theories abound why the plans were never used … by the time Johnson and co. Took an interest there was little that was still salvageable so they denied they existed …
Breaking the law
Richy Scumbag .. unable to corral the warring factions in the Tory Party
… Keith Starmer has been effective in keeping the outlying far left of the Labour Party in check, Tory factions openly in dispute … Scumbag completely devoid of the power to bring performers into line … Cruella Braverman supporters cannot contain their anger … Cleverly (sic) attempt to reduce the perceived but deeply misplaced believe that Rwanda could solve the small boats problem … ‘Let Markets Rip’ Brigade bemoan the ousting of Thick Lizzie … relics of a bygone era (Deadwood) call for yet more of her disastrous economic enemas … right wing think tanks that begot Thick Lizzie are still in residence in Tufton Street … despair over current divisions … while the damage done by Brexit continues to mount the recriminations seem destined to sour relations for years … Richy Scumbag is desperately trying to appease as many warring tendencies as possible … succeeding only in looking devoid of principles … latest attempt to exert the authority of his office … pathetic, petulant, cause for laughter … turning the Tory Party into a joke is a sacking matter … Tories united by one thing: hunger for power … polls indicate that the challenge is insurmountable …
Sunakered
Peevish toddler in Downing St
… cancelling meeting with Greek PM … Anybody who believes in the rightness of the position is never afraid of confronting arguments … a perfectly routine government meeting became a full scale diplomatic row … clusterf**k … nothing the Greek PM said new or surprising … Elgin Marbles a controversy since 1816 … nothing Mitsotakis could have said should have taken Scumbag by surprise … Instead Scumbag … in a whole of his own digging decided to keep at it …. failed desperately with an ill-focussed attempt to start a culture war … there are artefacts and works of art about which the British feel strongly … The Parthenon Sculptures are not among them, … Scumbag is not a Churchillian defender of the nation … instead a complete fool … King Charles wore a tie with a Greek flag … uncodified constitution prevents the monarch from calling the PM a prat but this is the next best thing…
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
