Steve Bray will be familiar to anyone who watches the news or current affairs programmes. His anti-Brexit, pro-democracy protests have upset the government so much (touching endless raw nerves) that Priti Patel even tried to write a specific clause in the Policing Bill to outlaw his presence. You might wonder what he does each day, […]
And we start with a two for one offering! Ed Dear Sheryll It seems you plan on keeping your loyalty to a liar, cheat and general criminal, who broke the laws that he himself set and then refused to do what you could bet your bottom dollar he would ask any other PM to do […]
Chris Grey, who blogs about Brexit and related matters, is someone well worth following. A recent post explored the fascinating links between the ‘partygate’ scandals currently engulfing the Johnson administration and the ideas and individuals that drove Vote Leave. It raised again a central paradox of current politics – that while Brexit and populism as […]
A thread on this article by @SteveBakerHW and what it tells us about the world view of part of the Conservative Party: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/time-to-step-up-negotiations-on-a-us-trade-deal-q6r65l9fq [paywall] On the face of it, the article is about enabling a trade deal with the US by accepting their regulatory standards (“it’s not for us to dictate how others regulate provided […]
‘He’s not a complete clown’ says PM’s new press chief’. No. Boris Johnson is a completely dangerous clown. Boris Johnson is “not a complete clown”, his new communications director Guto Harri said this month adding, “he’s a very likeable character.” Really? I would say instead that Boris Johnson is a completely dangerous clown, and nothing […]
The EU referendum was entirely flawed according to criteria set by former Brexit Secretary and ardent Brexiter, David Davis, on how referendums should be “done properly”. In July 2016, Tory MP, Mr Davis, accepted the result of the EU referendum and the dual-role of Brexit Secretary and Chief Brexit Negotiator in Theresa May’s new government. […]
The dismissal of (eg) John Major’s comments, on the grounds that he is a remainer, is one more reminder of how the shadow of the Brexit vote still casts a shadow over our politics. It hardly needs saying that there are many reasons to be concerned about the Johnson government. They have been obvious for […]
What kind of a country do we live in when, having stripped people of their freedom of movement, the Government sets further arbitrary deadlines that have the potential to devastate the lives of those most directly affected? It’s not just EU nationals affected by these deadlines – it’s UK nationals too. Right now, if UK […]
Perhaps the journalist for Bournemouth Echo had guessed that Jacob Rees-Mogg was about to be handed the ‘exciting’ challenge of proving the advantages of Brexit. None seem to be immediately discernible. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released a report on 9 February, which revealed that “the only detectable impact so far is increased costs, paperwork […]
Well, we all knew Murdoch was the most powerful man in UK politics, so maybe it’s no wonder that Jacob Rees-Mogg has turned to readers of the Sun in a desperate bid to scrape together a few rules and regulations that they have been told get up their noses. I fear he will be inundated […]
Dear Sheryll Finally, Brexit has created a job: quite a pointless and poisoned chalice of a job, Brexit Opportunities minister, due to the fact that there are clearly no benefits, but a job nonetheless. I am sure that will warm the hearts of all of those previously employed people who are on the breadline since […]
On 9 February 2022, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts published its latest report into the impact of Brexit and the consequent changes to the EU/UK border. It made grim reading. On the same day Johnson, scrabbling around for diversions from #partygate, reorganised the deckchairs on the Torytanic and moved the minister for […]
It was 30 years ago today – 7 February 1992 – that the Treaty of the European Union was signed by 12 EU member states in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The treaty was fully debated and democratically passed by our Parliament in Westminster – as were all the treaties of the EEC/EU during our […]
You might remember my articles from last year, when I explained why people don’t want to work as lorry drivers anymore. I came with several reasons why Britain suffers from a driver shortage. Surely now, when we have established that the economy does needs truckers, companies would be doing everything to attract them, right? Surely […]
The two-year anniversary of Brexit day on 31 January, coupled with Johnson’s lamentable popularity ratings (not so much sinking as drowning), have prompted Number 10 to unleash a flurry of misleading pro-Brexit propaganda. The aim appears to be to rally Brexit supporters with images of the Union Jack linked to positive words like “freedom” and […]
George Orwell would have understood the government’s abuse of the English language all too well. Tom Scott draws the parallels. In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell observes: “The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another […] […]
Last week in West Country Voices, I wrote about a Brixham-based, family-owned company which has – somehow – managed to continue exporting live mussels to the Netherlands, despite the many and varied obstacles placed in its way as a direct consequence of Brexit. I have no connection with this enterprise other than as a writer. […]
Imagine that you run an innovative, environmentally sustainable enterprise which employs your wife, your kids and ten local people. You’ve been in the business for over 30 years and you know exactly what you’re doing. You and your family have invested decades’ worth of emotion, aspiration, knowledge and money in it. You’ve won the industry’s […]
Dear Conor, I am sorry that I have to write to you again so soon after the Owen Paterson debacle. Indeed, if truth be told, I’m also a little resentful. As well as trying to recover from the twin hits of Brexit and Covid on my career, I am also now an unpaid carer for […]
This is a press release from campaign organisation, Grassroots for Europe. We do not usually publish these verbatim, but this is a well-worded and powerful summary of the situation we face, a situation that seems unbelievable in the UK, a situation which is a key characteristic of a repressive regime. We will be covering the […]
Some might feel that Brexit is trying to take us back to the rather quaint England portrayed in Dad’s Army, a world in which the country had its back against the wall fending off an evil foe, when patriotic, nationalist spirit was generated by its leaders and xenophobia was fostered to fuel the determination to […]
Words matter. Every second around 6,000 tweets are sent worldwide, equating to 500m a day – that’s 200bn tweets of 280 characters every year – you can watch it happening in real time at Internet Live Stats. It’s a lorra words. And 2021 was full of them. 2021 was the year of what was said […]
This is the tale of one man’s attempts to hold a politician to account for his public utterances – utterances which some would say represent an over-sized helping of double standards. If this interests you and you are one of those who, like me, are inclined to exclaim, “You effing liar” whenever a current Tory […]
Has there ever been a British government this rotten, this out of touch with the public and this much of a danger to British democracy, public well-being and our international reputation? Judge for yourself as we take you on a whirlwind tour of the highs and lows of 2021, a year many of us might […]
Ah, the review of the year! An opportunity to look back and see how far we have come, only in the UK’s case there is more than a whiff of Groundhog Day and zero evidence of any great moment of enlightened self-awareness or contrition from this government. Take our first highlight from January from Cornwall […]
Various reasons are given for the Liberal Democrats’ stunning by-election win in Leave-voting North Shropshire on 16 December. In Helen Morgan, they had a strong, local candidate who fought a vibrant, positive campaign and was able to inspire tactical voting by members of other progressive parties, notably Labour. The Conservative candidate, impressive on paper, was […]
What was that he said about Brexit? “I’m very pleased and proud to have led a great UK team to secure today’s excellent deal with the EU. Both sides worked tirelessly day after day in challenging conditions to get the biggest & broadest trade deal in the world, in record time.” Or something like that. […]
This 2019 article is from Tom Scott and Molly Scott Cato’s Cabinet of Horrors blog. It remains extremely pertinent, especially so given Truss’s move to ‘negotiate’ Brexit following Frost’s resignation. That’s the same Brexit Johnson and Frost claim to have got done… It would be easy to dismiss Liz Truss as an intellectual lightweight, and […]
Ahead of International Migrants Day (18 December), the lives of vast numbers of EU nationals in the UK are still in turmoil thanks to the actions, and inaction, of the Johnson/Vote Leave government. Richard Haviland explains their predicament. The Home Office likes to trumpet the success of its EU settlement scheme and say that over […]
The prime minister may soon have cause to reflect on the lessons of the greatest gangster movie ever made. Tom Scott explains the connection. Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel Johnson, once described her brother as “quite Sicilian” in his attitude towards loyalty. She was no doubt thinking of the Sicilian Mafia, and not just because one […]