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The Brexit referendum brought to the fore the economic dislocation that has taken place since the 1980s revealing deep class as well as generational and ethnic divisions. Marginalised voices voted Leave to kick back against a post-war party system that has failed them and a professional political elite that has largely ignored them. And in this election, they just wanted the job done, so they voted for the party that promised to do just that.
Getting Brexit “done”, however, is unlikely to resolve the deep-rooted social and economic problems facing many of the people who voted for it.
Some predictions estimate that leaving the EU will further exacerbate place-based inequality across the country, causing England’s regions to grow 13-16 percent less than they would have done if the UK had remained in the EU. Moreover, some regions like Cornwall are forecast to lose up to an additional £60m ($78.5m) per year in EU funding.
This was clearly not a message that the Conservatives wanted broadcast, so their rebuttal tactics were robust. Any attempt by the media to get the Conservative candidates to talk about the risks and realities of leaving the EU, or anything else that shows them in a bad light, was side-stepped – sometimes literally. The approach was straightforward – dodge the detail, just repeat the mantra, “Get Brexit Done”.
This resulted in a series of tactics of evasion and misinformation. The Conservatives tried their best to avoid difficult debates, with Johnson refusing to be interviewed by BBC’s Andrew Neil, a veteran journalist known for his combative interview style. The prime minister also vetoed several other programmes during the election campaign, including a climate debate on Channel 4, where he was replaced with an ice sculpture.
When a reporter used his phone to show Johnson a picture of a boy with pneumonia lying on the floor of a Leeds Hospital due to lack of beds, the prime minister took the phone and hid it in his pocket to avoid answering questions. And then there was the time the prime minister hid in a large fridge at a dairy in order to avoid giving an interview to ITV’s Piers Morgan.
The Leave campaign was built on lies, and as the UK hurtles toward the brink the liars who told them are laughing all the way to the bank.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/brexit-lies-and-rich-folk/
We all love out pets!
Situations like this really put things into perspective and help us appreciate what the really important things are in life!
25 March 2022
At several border crossing points along the Ukrainian-Polish border, refugee welcome centre's have been set up.
Every day, thousands of refugees come in who need a place to stay overnight, before continuing their journey into Poland and from there to other neighbouring countries. Our team has visited several of these border crossings, supporting the local veterinary teams and distributing water, pet food, harnesses and carriers to refugees who have fled Ukraine with their pets.
https://www.ifaw.org/uk/news/support-animals-ukraine?ms=KONDF220320853&cid=7013k000001a9di
The IndependentThe Independent
Boris Johnson news – live: Gove friend awarded millions in PPE contracts as Commons to vote on sleaze row
Rory Sullivan
Wed, 17 November 2021, 9:09 am
A friend of cabinet minister Michael Gove won more than £160 million in PPE contracts after being referred through a “VIP” lane, a leaked document has revealed.
The communities secretary recommended Meller Designs, a company which is co-owned by Conservative donor David Meller, who supported Mr Gove’s Tory leadership campaign.
Responding to the leak, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said it proved “just how engulfed in corruption this government is”.
Six other Conservative MPs and peers were also involved in business referrals during the pandemic, details published by Politico show. This includes Lord Feldman, a friend of David Cameron, who suggested three companies which went on to gain tens of millions of pounds in contracts.
Meanwhile, the sleaze row in Westminster continues on Wednesday with a vote on whether to ban outside consultancy work.
Boris Johnson belatedly backed the Labour proposal in an attempt to stem the backlash from a string of lurid headlines.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/boris-johnson-news-live-gove-074843166.html
Since Priti Patel's announcement in March, we have been campaigning against the proposal to make you use First Past the Post for mayoral and PCC elections. You've joined over 30,000 people in signing the petition calling on the Government to stop.
Until this week, this democratic downgrade wasn't included in the Elections Bill that's currently going through Parliament. But now, the Government have prepared a last-minute motion that would allow the relevant committee to consider this change.
Yesterday, Jacob Rees-Mogg scheduled this for debate in the House of Commons this coming Monday, 20th September.
https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/petition-less-fptp-not-more?link_id=2&can_id=7912b55e72d6174409e36b7a8226a78d&source=email-urgent-let-your-mp-know-we-should-have-less-fptp-not-more-3&email_referrer=email_1294195&email_subject=tell-httpsactionnetworkorglettersequal-votes-lobbyletter-letterfullname-default-your-mp-that-you-dont-want-first-past-the-post
The time is now to let your MP know what you think of this proposed levelling-down of our democracy. The Government has announced this at very short notice, with barely two working days to respond. So, please send a personal email to your MP right now.
You can find your MP’s name and send them an email by using the Write to Them online tool. It takes less than 5 minutes.
https://www.writetothem.com/?link_id=3&can_id=7912b55e72d6174409e36b7a8226a78d&source=email-urgent-let-your-mp-know-we-should-have-less-fptp-not-more-3&email_referrer=email_1294195&email_subject=tell-httpsactionnetworkorglettersequal-votes-lobbyletter-letterfullname-default-your-mp-that-you-dont-want-first-past-the-post
It was Boris with his lies who brought about Brexit and its detrimental effects on all UK Farming ,fishing, ftse companies and other businesses, ie costs , profits, dividend's , even our basic freedom's which are being systematically restricted .
Then of course there are the increasingly empty shelves that will face the public, all unnecessary and brought about by lies, deceit and gullibility!
European stocks ticked up on Friday morning even as data showed UK economic growth slowed in July despite the ease of lockdown restrictions and the economy opening up.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/european-markets-rise-as-uk-economy-recovery-slows-081925793.html
PayPal is increasing fees that will affect business with the EU – British companies will be charged a 1.29 per cent fee for payments from the European Economic Area (EEA) and vice versa.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/brexit-paypal-introduces-fees-between-162702821.html
The boss of the Food and Drink Federation has said that the days when UK consumers could expect to pick up nearly whatever product they want whenever they want from supermarket shelves are over. (PA)
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/going-worse-uk-supermarket-shortages-112840225.html
Some UK farmers have been told to throw away milk because of a shortage of lorry drivers to collect it, while one dairy logistics firm warned of a “collapse of parts of the supply chain”.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-dairy-farmers-told-throw-174018309.html
After Brexit buyer beware some UK farmers care little about animal welfare , instead they ignore the codes they promise to abide by so some of the the UK produced farm produce in our shops isn't always all it claims to be!
Following a tip-off from a member of the public, Hillside's Farm Animal Investigators recently visited a Norfolk Pig Farm. The undercover footage shows pigs being kept in an appalling state. There was no straw for the legally requiring dry lying area, leaving the pigs to exist on piles of their own excrement. Additionally, water drinkers were often blocked or empty, leaving the poor pigs seriously neglected.
The farm supplies pigs to Suffolk based company 'C&K Meats', who boast of their 'Passion for provenance and quality' and have been awarded many accreditation's including Red Tractor, RSPCA Assured and BRC Grade A.
C&K Meats produced their own promotional video where they say how important animal welfare is to them. Perhaps they should visit some of the farms that supply them with pigs!
Investigation footage highlights the difference between what we are told about farm animal welfare, and the grim reality for the animals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnL5UKZXXLY
www.hillside.org.uk
What does DEFRA or do about such appalling disregard for animal welfare and food hygiene, usually very little as far as I can tell considering how many times situations like this have been exposed over the years!
A Norwegian government statement adds: “No free trade agreement will provide the same access to the UK market. Nor will it dismantle all the trade barriers that have been removed under the EEA Agreement.” The tariffs and red tape are entirely the creation of Brexit and boasting about slashing and cutting them is akin to boasting proudly about how you cleaned up your own excrement after dropping a load on your living room carpet.
Truss’ popularity will probably be undiminished by this dissembling - it’s clearly not a problem for Tory members or voters to have a proven liar as prime minister. But there are signs she now just can’t help fibbing.
A Norwegian government statement adds: “No free trade agreement will provide the same access to the UK market. Nor will it dismantle all the trade barriers that have been removed under the EEA Agreement.” The tariffs and red tape are entirely the creation of Brexit and boasting about slashing and cutting them is akin to boasting proudly about how you cleaned up your own excrement after dropping a load on your living room carpet.
Truss’ popularity will probably be undiminished by this dissembling - it’s clearly not a problem for Tory members or voters to have a proven liar as prime minister. But there are signs she now just can’t help fibbing.
Kinesis Crypto currency
Andrew Maguire explains the UK "exemption" for the London gold market to the new Basel III rules. It is NOT what the media is portraying it to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKe5BRFnzw
As you may be aware the UK LBMA thinks it has found a way around the new Basel 3 regulations , although in fact this isn’t the case the LBMA is now out of step with the rest of the world.
Andrew Maguire explains the UK "exemption" for the London gold market to the new Basel III rules. It is NOT what the media is portraying it to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKe5BRFnzw
Certainly won't move on TopDog, we have been conned, our turn now to tell the Brexiteers to "Suck it up !" and "Get over it!" they made a stupid decision !
Now is the time to fight to rejoin the EU , not lay down and fester as prisoners in a backwater of a country!
What a bunch of crooks we have for a government,, they only care about themselves whilst wasting money at a truly alarming rate, the NHS & social care is starved of funding unless we pay more tax supposedly ring fenced , my rear end, why do people trust the buggers!
The Tories are just a bunch of spivsters!
A former Tory councillor was given a £120m government contract for personal protective equipment (PPE) which is now lying unused because of concerns about its quality, it has been revealed.
Steve Dechan, who owns medical device manufacturer Platform-14, had his offer to supply protective equipment from China fast-tracked through the government’s controversial “VIP” lane.
The Sunday Times newspaper reports that fewer than 1 in 400 of the face shields procured by the company on behalf of the government have been used, because the regulator does not believe they meet the right standards.
The original order for 120 million shields has delivered just 274,200 into the NHS supply chain, representing 0.23 per cent of the overall stock.
It means the shields used so far have cost the equivalent of £423 each, despite similar ones being available to buy online for less than £1.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has to authorise all PPE that is not CE marked (an EU designation that means it complies with European standards).
But the regulator said: “None of the documentation provided to HSE indicated the product to be CE marked.”
The regulator wrote to officials in September last year saying the shields “cannot enter the NHS supply chain” and repeatedly refused to approve them.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/former-tory-councillor-got-%c2%a3120m-vip-lane-government-contract-for-face-shields-now-lying-unused/ar-AAMxuZ4?ocid=AVRES000&li=BBoPWjQ&OCID=AVRES000&pc=UE00
Boris is so desperate for EU Cash!
The UK government is telling councils to display EU flags across towns and cities in England as a condition for receiving high street Covid recovery cash.Guidance issued to local authorities by the communities ministry this summer says the blue and yellow symbol of European unity is "required" to be displayed around "every piece of signage, pavement sticker, or temporary public realm adaption" funded under the scheme.
The requirement, which will see thousands of new EU flags posted on official buildings and in public places across the country, exists because the European Regional Development Fund has given money to the UK to help with the Covid-19 reopening.
Despite Brexit having happened, under the withdrawal agreement the UK is still eligible for certain payments from the fund until the end of 2023 – but with strings attached.
The flag rule, imposed from Brussels but enforced from Whitehall, is embarrassing for ministers because they are keen to rid UK public buildings of EU flags, but do not want to turn down the Covid recovery cash. However, planning regulations introduced in England in 2007 to allow the EU flag to be flown on public buildings without planning permission will be removed following Brexit.
Wall Street Breakfast: Brexit Tensions Resurface
23 July 2021
The Brexit drama is far from over, with the U.K. and EU on a collision course over the rules for Northern Ireland. It was only seven months ago that the two sides came to an agreement on a Brexit deal, but Britain now wants to overhaul the trading system for the territory. The special arrangement was previously inked to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and prevent a backdoor for smuggling into the bloc, but the protocol has subsequently resulted in a fractious relationship.
Why is it still an issue? Northern Ireland's status is somewhat of a hybrid as it is still part of the United Kingdom, as well as the European Single Market. That means checks need to be done on goods that are traveling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to block items from leaking into the EU. Most of the checks are carried out on the Irish sea border, which has caused tensions among the pro-U.K. unionist community in Northern Ireland, which doesn't like the idea of a barrier with the mainland.
U.K. Brexit Minister David Frost now sees the situation as untenable and has proposed a plan to substantially rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol. The deal would largely be based on a light-touch regime and the honesty of traders, whereby businesses would register their transactions and agree to inspections of their supply chains. Meanwhile, a deadline is looming at the end of September, when a series of so-called grace periods come to an end and the full weight of checks are supposed to be applied across Irish sea traffic.
Going further: Frost wants to extend the waiver periods indefinitely, and if the EU doesn't put the current arrangements on hold, he's holding back the option of overriding the entire treaty unilaterally. If that would happen, the EU would likely retaliate with tariffs and sanctions, while the relationship would deteriorate even further. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU will be "creative and flexible," but has ruled out renegotiation.
The costs of Brexit continue to mount - and they dwarf what Boris Johnson has set aside for "levelling up" in the regions
It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, as the Brexit waste goes on and on without ever making sense - a bit like Boris Johnson’s speech on levelling up!
The costs of Johnson’s mission to level down the UK’s standing around the world turn out to dwarf what he’s proposing to give to less privileged areas of the country. While £4.8billion has been allocated by the government to the new Levelling Up Fund, some £12billion has gone to departments and devolved authorities to help them get their heads round the logistics of being out of the EU.
Add that to the estimated £40billion in lost trade with Europe since we left the single market at the end of January and the £130billion wasted on Brexit from 2016-2020, and Johnson’s first big idea is sucking up more than 38 times the amount being spent on his second, infinitely better one.
No wonder Lord Frost and his union flag socks are so eager to knock £3.5bn off our divorce bill with the EU. You might remember that as the one that Boris Johnson told his backbenchers was “extortionate” and Europe could “go whistle” for, but which he’s now willing to pay £37.3billion to settle.
Yet the costly embarrassments continue to rack up for Brexiteers. Rather than use up our stocks of burgundy passports before switching to blue ones, the government decided the new colour must come in last March and the supplies of old-style passports destroyed. That exercise in Brexit boneheadedness cost the taxpayer £8.6million.
Johnson’s Brexit plane, repainted in Union flag livery at a cost of £900,000 and supposed to boost trade around the world, has been used only once in a promotional capacity in the last five months.
Then there’s the £200m Brexit yacht, the cost of which cabinet office secretary Michael Gove, trade secretary Liz Truss and defence secretary Ben Wallace are all adamant will not come from their budgets. A government insider told the Times the yacht row was “a complete and utter ****show”, which is probably being unfair to ****shows.
But there may be a way that Boris Johnson could win worldwide attention for levelled-up global Brexit Britain, at a budget cost. All he needs is a box of matches, a plinth in Leicester Square, his own bare bottom and three red-white-and-blue flares!
Can any single one of the Brexit Army, from General Johnson down, say without shame or dishonesty, that Brexit is working out either as they said it would, or wanted it to? If so, why have so many of them fallen so silent?
My opinion now is exactly the same about Brexit today as I did when I cast my vote, and am happy to shout it just as loudly. Mistake. Disaster. Worst act of national self-harm in our lifetime. I wonder if deep down, some of these chancer's might be beginning to feel the same.
Certainly, if I had devoted my life to fighting for a change as big as Brexit, I would never stop shouting it from the rooftops; I would have written books and made films galore to make sure people never forgot the scale and significance of what had been achieved. The winners are behaving as though they lost. It’s quite weird, when you reflect on it.
Might the silence of the victors suggest that though they are fully fledged creatures and exploiters of the post-truth world, for that is how they won, they are not yet fully-fledged creatures of the post-shame world? We know Johnson has no shame, for we see it day in day out. But for these lesser characters in the Brexit story, might there just be the slightest smidgen of shame at the gulf between what was promised, and what is now ensuing? Certainly, if they are proud of what they have created, 'don’t mention the war’ is a very odd way of showing it!
A great question in a pub quiz once they’re back!
Who is Steve Barclay? Go on, dig deep, jog your memory – he was another one, never off the airwaves explaining how well it was all going when he was Brexit Secretary, now in the Treasury as Chief Secretary, but on the economic consequences of Brexit… well, I just put his name into Google, clicked on ‘news,’ and fair to say, he doesn’t make any, and he certainly doesn’t talk about the economic consequences of Brexit.
What are we to make of Dominic Raab? Such an ardent campaigner, now surely the lowest profile foreign secretary in our history, and when he does venture out, it is rarely to invite us to dance on the sunlit uplands, for they are not there; and nor it is to exploit the greater power that Brexit has delivered to our diplomacy, for in truth it has made us weaker and less respected around the world.
Michael Gove, though charged with trying to sort out some of the mess he and his fellow Brexit liars and charlatans delivered, is remarkably low profile compared with during other stages of his Brexit career. Better than anyone else in the cabinet at slithering out of tricky question areas, even he is finding there are too many circles to be squared, so best to keep your head down, take your son to Champions League games abroad, and enjoy a bit of special privilege self-isolation.
Noticeably very odd that during seven hours of testimony at his recent select committee appearance, Dominic Cummings, for whom the entire exercise was designed to feed his ‘I was always right’ narrative on Covid, did not find a way to make his role in winning for Leave part of that narrative? Is he too now so embarrassed by the reality of what it has delivered that, like Johnson, he prefers to have his life dominated by a pandemic created by others, than the Brexit mayhem created by them?
Andrea Jenkyns, Nadine Dorries, Theresa Villiers, Mark Francois, Bill Cash, Steve Baker… so many Tory MPs who made their names in the fight for Brexit, now scattered to the winds, and, on the campaign to which they gave so much, largely silent as the grave. Arron Banks, too – it used to be I could hardly tweet the B-word without him retorting how wrong I would be proved when all the Brexit promises were delivered. These days, not a word. And where is Daniel Hannan, self-styled intellectual godfather to the whole project, yet less voluble in explaining away its downsides, than he was when he was so confident there would be none?
So agreed we can all laugh at Tim Martin., but wouldn’t it be nice, too, if Brexit’s other business cheerleaders, like James Dyson or Jim Ratcliffe, or that single Brexit economist who kept being wheeled out, whose name I have forgotten, but who assured us there would only be upsides, would also give us the benefit of their wisdom and their analysis now, five years after the champagne corks stopped popping?
cont
However, they are not working out fine, but heaven forbid anyone should think it is Johnson’s or Frost’s fault, On No, those bloody Europeans made them sign the Protocol, of course they did. ‘How were we supposed to know it would have the effect they said it would? Why should we implement it just because we agreed to?’
And what of Arlene Foster, how must she be feeling about life these days, having fought so hard for Brexit despite a majority in Northern Ireland not wanting it, having supported Johnson as Tory leader on the basis he would be "a fabulous friend to Northern Ireland", and now part of that long list of people to learn that if you hitch your wagon to Johnson, the chances are you’ll one day regret it?
Now no longer first minister, a child of Brexit devoured by Brexit, and its inevitable contradictions, on which she is now silent, as well as powerless!
Kate Hoey, another Ulster woman who flew the Brexit flag, not least from the back of the boat she shared with Nigel Farage as they sailed down the Thames to rage at EU fisheries policy, and promise UK fishermen a bright new future freed from the shackles of Brussels… where is she now? Sitting in the House of Lords, where else, alongside other Brexit-supporting ex-Labour MPs, Gisela Stuart and John Mann, similarly very quiet these days when it comes to Brexit.
As for Farage, he remains high profile of course, because his profile is his living. So he piles into any debate which allows him to say ‘woke,’ and milks his Brexit fame to become one of Cameo’s star turns, delivering video messages to anyone who wants one, and failing to spot that when someone called ‘Hugh Janus’ paid a few quid to get ‘a personalised message from Nigel’, it was a ****-take, just to hear the words ‘hello, huge anus’ fall from Farage’s lips. But when was the last time you heard Farage talk fishing, or farming, or indeed any of the other sectors promised they would thrive, and now realising they were lied to by people like him?
While Farage keeps on trilling and shilling, other leading lights of the Brexit campaign have simply vanished from public view, among them cabinet ministers. There was a time you could not turn on the radio or TV without hearing the über-Etonian tones of Jacob Rees-Mogg telling us how Brexit would lead to cheaper food, cheaper clothes, cheaper holidays, less red tape, greater competitiveness, a stronger economy, more power… now that none of those things have turned out to be true, he has gone from ubiquity to invisibility, perhaps hiding away in agony that his beloved Catholic Church will these days marry twice-divorced proven liars who pay for abortions as a way of keeping their child tally to single figures!
Cont
Weatherspoon’s boss Tim Martin inevitably attracted heaps of scorn when recently bemoaning staff shortages for his pubs, and demanding the government allow more EU migrants to fill the gap. But at least he was prepared to face that scorn to point out an unfortunate if inevitable consequence of the Brexit he had helped to bring about.
Most of his fellow Brexit warriors have preferred instead to run for the hills. The new Brexit battle cry seems to be: ‘Don’t mention the war, in case anyone remembers that we were the people who started it …’
David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith and Liam Fox have morphed from being Brexit experts to become Covid experts, if by ‘expert’ we mean that they are regularly invited onto flagship BBC programmes to give their view, without ever being asked why they got so much wrong in their previous field of expertise.
On the rare occasion they do face a question about the B-word, Davis chuckles, IDS coughs, Fox sighs, and all three complain that, sadly, the Europeans have created the wrong sort of Brexit. Taking Back Control is all very well, but not if it means forfeiting the ability to blame the EU when it turns out we have lost more than we gained in doing so.
‘The wrong sort of Brexit’ is a line of defence now adopted by none other than David Frost, the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, who stood so proudly and so smugly behind Boris Johnson as the prime minister signed an agreement he had almost certainly never read, and who now laments the deal-clinching Northern Ireland Protocol of which he was once so proud and so smug.
It was not as though anyone warned them, was it, that to make Brexit happen, you would need either a hard border on the island of Ireland, or a border down the Irish Sea that would mean Northern Ireland was treated differently to the rest of the UK? Nor did anyone point out that this would create all manner of economic and political problems for the region… well, apart from Tony Blair and John Major five years ago and many times since. And apart from the Irish government until they were sick of saying it, and the European negotiators who kept trying to spell out the realities, but were met with Johnson’s populist bluster, and Frost’s insistence that things would work out fine.
Cont