Tag: brexit

Dear Labour…

By Daviemoo

Politics in the UK is in tatters.
Everyone- from the people I hear discuss it in the streets, to Lord Heseltine on TalkTV, can see that. It’s hardly a controversy to point this out, the intellectual equivalent of leaving an apple on your desk for weeks, watching its skin dry, pucker, rot- then, one day, for no particular reason suddenly jumping up & exclaiming “my goodness, this apple is mouldy!” It’s played out in full view. Amongst many problems including the deep and intrinsic winding of the far right around key positions like Home Secretary, that rot has pushed people who used to be more radical in their leftism- when it was easy, in full swing in the political sphere- into centricism.
When you number amongst the dreaded far left who are demonised across the board, what is one to do when the leader of the Labour Party says “like it or lump it”.

Firstly let’s start with a disclaimer. Yes there are idiots amongst the far left. There are also total muppets amongst the center left, dicks aplenty amongst centrists, wankers galore amongst the centre right- and I dont think we need to go into the far right do we. No, I don’t condone the actions of twitter incels who call themselves far left but act like misogynistic weirdos, who spam people’s comment sections, who slurp at the shaft of weird totalitarian figures of communist atrocities past and present. It’s weird behaviour that I don’t understand and I don’t associate with my politics. If you want to think that because I call myself far left I’m lumped in with them I will not lose one iota of sleep over it.

The article Starmer wrote in the Times is misrepresented in several places- but it’s hard to know that considering it’s insultingly behind a paywall. It’s all well and good saying “if you dislike how I run my party you can leave” then monetising that behind a screen that stops you reading it, hardly a brave callout to clear off if you have to pay the Times of all people for the pleasure.

The times journos and pundits sell it as a kiss off in its entirety to the far left. It’s not that, the article itself is a celebration in strides made against antisemitism in the Labour Party. Whilst I’m happy to hear moves have been made to deal with antisemitism, which is disgusting and must be rooted out in the most aggressive terms, I can’t speak to that- I’m not jewish, nor am I a member of any political party and I prefer to take my notes about how to respond to antisemitism from Jewish people.
The only way to find out if antisemitism has improved in labour is to listen to jewish voices. Some are happy, some are not and that’s entirely their verdict to make.
What I found consternating on a personal level is the self congratulatory tone of a job well done in making strides forward, and yet the complete ignorance of other burgeoning equality issues in the party- and terming yourself the party of equality rankles me deeply.
Firstly, to be a true party of equality you may consider writing for a newspaper other than The Times who, upon the murder of trans teen Brianna Ghey on the weekend, went to pains to deadname Brianna, deny that her murder was linked to her status as a trans individual and who has also played an integral part in the anti-trans culture war- which an ex advisor of the Conservatives has resigned over, claiming that Sunak will fight the next election over culture war nonsense.
I’m not a stupid man. I know that Rosie Duffield is untouchable. If Starmer did give her the boot, the newspapers would practically gum up with front page stories: “SILENCED AND CANCELLED DUFFIELD- KICKED OUT FOR KNOWING WHAT A WOMAN IS”. She’s untouchable because any move to step her down would ratify her deranged movement in their eternally misplaced idea that they are the victims of their perpetual hate movement against trans people.

Nobody who is sane, least of all trans people, deny that women’s lives are awful- especially with the rise and rise of pindick incels like Andrew Tate, though it goes back further than that. Focusing all your anti misogyny energy on excluding trans people instead of men who quite literally want to subjugate women as sex slaves is something I’ll never understand and yet it seems to be the way of things- and lets be honest, who am I to tell women how to deal with misogyny. I just find it weird that the people saying “we’re literally women lets fight misogyny together” are often described as the biggest threat to women over the radicalisation of a huge swath of young men, the rise of date rape culture which has worsened dramatically in the last 4 years and the all but abolishment of rape punishment under a government who refused to make misogyny a hate crime. It’s entirely possible to stand up for women regardless of their gender. How about we do that- because I don’t see that as radical in any way, I see it as the bare fucking minimum.

That’s enough of a dividing line for me. My support of trans people and women in particular is a hard-line and I’m quite literally happy to end friendships and change my political alignment over it. But if that’s not enough for me to be constantly chewing my nails over labour, how about more?

Brexit. Fucking brexit.
Secret upper crust nonpartisan meetings of political leaders discussing how much brexit has decimated our lives.
Do you know how offensive that is- that British politicians retire for a couple of days to chat over just how much of a fuckup our lives are, all whilst turning their collective back to the public eye between reciting “get brexit done, unleash Brexit’s successes, turn on the brexit bonuses levelling up vaccine rollout siren”. It’s so insulting.
Am I saying this little tete a tete shouldn’t have happened? No, I’m saying we should be INVOLVED. If the UK government knows brexit is a failure and they’re happy to discuss that amongst themselves, just remind me who endowed them with the power to do it? The people they’re currently ignoring in favour of chatting to each bloody other!
Even the Times, again, a paper so steeped in the mythology of Brittania being unfettered by leaving the EU has reneged and called Brexit’s time of death. So for British political parties to completely cut out the PEOPLE in this discussion is an egregious betrayal.
Did Starmer know about this summit? Did Lammy get his say- so to attend? And why, why were the British people, especially those of us whose voices are hoarse from shouting about the brexit failures, completely circumvented in consultation? Starmer’s labour continues to promise that upon election they’ll make brexit work- by taking advantage of it, but not by reunifying in any way. This line of edict is just as undemocratic as the Tories tearing us out after harrying us into a yes or no then ignoring any indication of what had come before.
The very leavers who promised we’d stay in the single market and customs union now tell us it’s good we left them too, as the British economy writhes on the floor turning a disturbing shade of purple.
I feel like I’m being gaslit and not just by the ineffable liars in power- but by those I’m supposed to cheerfully vote to replace them. And when I raise that concern, when I say “ah, I dont know how much I like this”, I’m immediately shouted down- Starmer has a plan, Starmer has an ace up his sleeve. I can only go off the words he says- brexit was voted through by people who wanted to vote for a dream and now I’m being told to vote for a dream to undo it! That way lies folly. I just want to vote for reality- is that wrong?

Brexit is an issue we’ve been fighting on for a long time due to its intangibility right? Okay, how about the other culture war bollocks heaped on us by the shovelful every day: Immi-fucking-gration.

“There’s not much between labour and conservatives on immigration”.

Do you know which far left operative said that provocative, dangerous line?

Keir Starmer. On LBC. If that’s the truth, if we have another iteration of labour who are willing to -as Angela Rayner said on TV recently- tag asylum seekers for the crime of COMING HERE TO SEEK ASYLUM then I don’t know, I feel pretty good about not being okay with that. Treating every immigrant and refugee like a criminal when we don’t give them legal recompense to come or assign enough people to help their paperwork process in decent time is not “hard headed common sense” as Sunak calls it, it’s barbaric, a failure ridden system that needs abolishment and replacement with something that does work, is humane, that considers the world that we’re in and that is still suffering from the reverberations of the British empire and our ridiculous colonialist aspirations- people are being displaced from countries WE started wars in then we have the cheek to get mad when they turn up on our shore!

I sit in myriad group chats now on twitter, on WhatsApp, on instagram and I listen to people disparage me, my politics, people like me and my rage continues to grow. Ah yes, I’m the problem, silly little airhead me thinking that we might be able to forge a way forward that pleases reasonable people, that we don’t have to continually appeal to centricism – and I hasten to add that whilst I don’t personally dislike centrists because they are centrists, I eschew the idea that moderation is important when so many bulwarks of society, politics and culture are haemorrhaging simultaneously- we need radical reform and it may mean uncomfortable changes and far reaching reform- but for those who suffer under the status quo, I’m willing to bear discomfort as they have for so long: And anyway how much more discomfort do you need than skyrocketing bills and mortgages, stagnated wages, debilitating viral spread, people forced to strike and disrupt national services, an NHS in its agonal breaths and political lying utterly normalised?
Now I need to clarify, yes I understand that in this ridiculous broken system in the UK, we DO have to appeal to a broad range of voters. But if that means appealing to the xenophobes, the anti trans, the “acceptable” culture war nonsense then I am also allowed to lodge a very-big-bloody-problem with it.

To my friends who continually slate the hard left- hi, I’m the hard left. Am I a bad person? Do I seem mean? Do my politics terrify you? Or am I similar to you in a lot of ways but no longer knee jerk react to every person who lodges a complaint with labour’s slide away from radical reform with “OH WELL SEE HOW YOU LIKE THE TORIES THEN”. This tired narrative of “get on board and make changes later” never works- because you somehow never actually make the changes. So many people who claim deep rooted interest in politics want things to change- unless they are affected. I can see it now- “He’s only just been elected, he needs time, that would upset people, oh he’s trying, he can’t rock the boat” or, my favourite one: “it’s not the time”. When is the time to fight for our beliefs and aspirations.
It’s a tale as old as time and the people you’re so angry at, AKA the far left, AKA me, are people who have been asking for change for as long as you have and go from being utterly ignored to ridiculed to being told we have no choice but to vote for those who will not enact our will- the difference I see between myself and you is that I haven’t abandoned my more radical views, even if I’ve delayed them to match the crawl of UK political progression. Yes, you will win the next election- and keeping stuff exactly the same is the grossest betrayal of everyone suffering under the mire right now that I can imagine.

Do I think a labour government would do better for many people than the tories? Yes- but that’s not a glowing endorsement of labour and their actions. I have a Donald Trump toilet brush I trust to do a better job than the tories. They are parodies of politics, besuited shills set on benches in parliament to say empty lines about the jobs they’re getting on with and how levelled up we all are, whilst their back pockets positively strain to hold illicit cash. Preferring labour to that isn’t a ringing endorsement- it’s the least one can do.
Do I think some of the moves labour are offering to make are good? Yes, of course. I know things will be better in many ways under labour, but being better than disaster isn’t a ringing endorsement. I have to ask, how many sacrifices of things we dearly want and need are people like me going to be asked to make? How far will you go to demonise us and our aspirations rather than facing the literal hard right who are in power now?
I see so much garbage about the hard left from people who spend their time on twitter. Apparently its anathema to insult capitalism… How’s that capitalism workin’ out for ya though? Yes there are horrible examples of socialism throughout history, terrible crimes committed by those who espouse communism and absolute fools willing to enact authoritarian communist state politics. I also read a story the other day about an American man who now can’t bend his leg at any joint from hip to ankle because it was crushed at work and he’s too poor to have it fixed, or about an American housewife who died because she couldn’t afford to have the chemo needed to treat her cancer so it just grew inside her. Look at the state of the UK- as people turn their literal power off in their houses because they can’t afford their bills you decry those who lodge their issues with living in heavy capitalism?
You want to talk moderation? How about moderating between positive socialist ideals and positive capitalist ideals and finding your moderation there.

I don’t care about Corbyn very much. I know that’ll upset other people who have agreed up to this point. Yes he was monstered in the press, yes I wanted him as PM, some of his actions frustrated me then and they frustrate me now. I don’t think he’s the devil he’s been painted out to be but I don’t think he’s the only hope for leftist discourse and unity in the UK. In fact, I actively refuse to pin my hopes and aspirations on just one person, just one politician because my leftist politics hangs between the hands of every person who believes in it. We are the change, not anyone who sits in parliament.
I’d hope he’d agree with that along with anyone who believes in leftist reform. I believe we need broad, brave change across the UK. I believe we need to confront problems both archaic and new. We need to reform education, resuscitate our public health system and not look to privatisation as a fix considering we’ve seen how that works for energy, water and the public travel systems- we need to confront the sinuous twisting of the far right amongst our highest offices & to dispel the hate of LGBT+ individuals and migrants, we need to build in a societal buffer for women to ensure that men who practice vile misogyny face the harshest stricture.
I believe we can do it. But that involves change- not maintenance. The system is not fit for purpose. I am willing to watch it be chipped at, provided help is given to those suffering under it now purely because I do not believe blowing it up will be any more helpful than holding it in place as it crumbles.
If you ask for me to vote to keep things the same, you’re asking for me to vote for the mire into which we sink- is that what you want? Because It’s not what I want.

I am tired of trying to appease people who do nothing but disparage my politics. Tried of hearing “if the far left don’t like it they can leave”. Fine! This must be the epitome of the abusive political relationship where I’m told to leave my ideas at the door then I can come in and have the obvious stuff everyone wants but nothing else, the bare minimum stuff it shouldn’t even be a thought to ask for.
“But you’re tory enabling if you don’t vote labour”- a huge indictment of our voting system; but how far is labour allowed to stray from my ideals before it’s not my reluctance to vote for them with enthusiasm that’s the issue? I don’t like it, I’m told to leave, but then I’m told leaving is tory enabling so a genuine question: What do you want from me?! You keep asking me to go if I don’t like it then telling me that going makes things worse. Exactly what choices are you offering? Now we’re told “if you don’t like my vision, leave”. And go where? Vote for another party who will never see power? I’m stuck- it’s not for me to change my politics, it’s for you to represent them!

To those who read this and react with rage, I want you to understand that your knee jerk reaction to anyone questioning labour comes from fear of the tories winning and I understand it, but if labour win, and if labour maintain this horrendous status quo in ways that benefit you but not the oppressed who have lodged complaints- do you want change that helps everyone, or do you just want to win and make sure that you’re ok, at the expense of the rest.

It is also not radical to point out the failure of capitalism. Look at how our bills and rent and goods continue to escalate. It is hardly a shocking standpoint to rationally ask if this system that ties us to debt works- does that mean socialism is the answer? No. But it means discussion of alternatives that do work should not be anathema.

I am tired of pretending to be more moderate than I am. My politics make sense to me even if they aren’t perfect, even if they are “airy fairy”. I do not want labour to lose, I am not trying to work against them- rather I am trying to force a confrontation between the front bench and reality. Voters do not want to hear the same tory line about brexit and minorities do not want to see how truly disposable we are in the face of voter shares and polling. And those desperate people who flee the war zones our meddling creates do not deserve to be demonised by every party. Unfortunately these stances alone seem to be radical. A shame and an indictment on the British political status quo, and calling that out is not meant to be a defection against labour. It’s a cry to the wider voting public to ask why we accept these as the terms of engagement for voting- because to me they are all adding up to be a bridge too far. I don’t want to not vote for labour, I don’t want to vote for them through gritted teeth. I want to stand behind the party proudly and vote for better- I want them to win my vote, not take it through lack of options. That is not radical. 

In his article, Kier Starmer clearly states “we are not going back”. Good, I don’t want you to. But I do want you to move forward. This is not about going back to the halcyon days of the Corbyn manifesto, it’s about moving through the socio-political quagmire into better days.
We need PR, we need broad reform to politics and we need political leaders who stand for bold progress- not establishment. If it’s a crime to think that, lock me up.

From Covid to Russia, from Remoaners to the nasty EU… It’s never Brexit or it’s famously pig eared supporters, is it

By Daviemoo

The day I woke up and saw the result of the referendum I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Some would say that I wasn’t being patriotic, wasn’t believing hard enough in Great Britain. But facts are stubborn little things, slithering their way through the shafts of what we once thought was Sunlight on the uplands. Brexiteers will do back breaking gymnastics to point the failure-finger at everything but their precious brexit. But some of us remember.

I knew sod all about economics in 2016. At the time I was under increasing mental strain: people in my family kept dying of cancer, my partner at the time was a horrendous person, my job in the NHS was plagued with the demands of managers put into their roles through nepotism. I’d been off work just over a month when the referendum happened: I was signed off with stress because I calmly explained that I was going to kill myself over a small slip up at work and to escape how horrible life was- so as you can imagine, I was not exactly in my right mind at the time.

But I do remember spending hours reading about trade, trade deals, EU/UK relations, market reliance, import export statistics, various EU laws that the UK both loved and hated according to Straight Banana enthusiast Boris De-Waffle Johnson. At one point I went out for some food with a friend who was an economist. We actually went out so I could talk to him about how depressed I was, but naturally the conversation tilted to the looming referendum. And his words about what would happen to the market have come true to the very letter. It was, in retrospect, a bit like sitting with Cassandra from the Greek tale, desperate and dire warnings which crashed around the ears of everyone to no avail.
But all of this meant that, despite feeling completely out of sorts at the time, I felt very clued up when I stepped into the empty primary school that was my local polling station to confidently say “of course, leaving the EU is a bad idea”. As I crossed that box I assumed others around me had done the same research, had come to the same obvious conclusions and were not buying into the happy fish cheaper mortgage better goods nonsense being pushed by government ministers who had one agenda: deregulation, less work for themselves.
I was wrong.

My local MP at the time was Jo Cox, who was a passionate campaigner for remaining in the EU. I was actually practically around the corner when she was murdered. The reason she died? The malignant, supremacist guff whose tendrils had spread murkily through the chatter around leaving, around stopping them nasty forriners comin ere an stealing are jobs. It’s that simple: she was murdered because of the blunt, ridiculous conclusions of a white supremacist racist whose grasp of economics extended no further than his nose and who believed that murder was a better expression of his discontent than discussion.
I thought of Jo too when I put a cross in that box. I knew she was right in her convictions, and I knew it was wrong for her to die for them but I felt it right to honour her sacrifice. To this day whenever I think of ardent brexiteers I remember they’re dangerous: that’s how far some of them went for this, ignoring the actions of a deluded extremist murderer. And how did the government at the time respond: Boris Johnson told MPs terrified by Cox’s murder that they needed to vote for Brexit to keep themselves safe… Remember that well used line from cheesy US action films? We don’t negotiate with terorrists? Johnson was actively encouraging fidelity to the wants and whims of an extremist to prevent more terror. I bet you won’t find that in any favourable coverage of him.

All of these things were not a culmination for me. The referendum, at the time, seemed immaterial in the pulsing flow that was my life. I wasn’t going to let a referendum about economics define me when everything else was so wrong, but it was also important to me. I was proud of our EU membership because it showed we were a nation happy to work together with our neighbours to achieve success. But as it went on, as I had accusations of betraying my country or not believing hard enough in the magic healing that would take place with the leave result, or as I saw sneering politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg or whichever else they squeezed on tv to trot out lies about NHS funding or happy fish I got more and more annoyed. I was being told to ignore the research and expertise I’d worked on to believe Ben our local crazy and his idea that once we were free from the chains of the EU we’d all have a castle, a unicorn and our illusory freedom form bureaucracy.
How much shame I feel now, having watched our country’s petulant behaviour over the last 6 years.

The charitable part of me gives a grain of amusement to the passionate brexiteers whose unfailing defence of brexit never ceases to amaze. It’s not because of brexit, it’s… the nasty EU making it harder to leave, they’re punishing us!
Yes, naturally. They don’t want other member states to do it so of course they are going to make it difficult; that was one of the many deciding factors.
Well, yeah but… It’s about sovereignty isn’t it!
Ah yes. What has sovereignty brought us? A radical government incapable of balancing the books who stripped your protesting rights back, endorses pointless legislation against voter fraud- essentially the US’ voter disenfranchisement laws copy pasted for the UK, and economic backslide so harsh that the UK is like an elevator with its wires cut screaming down the shaft to the basement as other economies overtake us: not because they’re good. Because we’re bad.
OK but what about covid then!
Well, about that. Covid has certainly contributed, there’s no denying that: it’s obvious. But you seem to be overlooking the fact that the EU offered a mid-term extension to the brexit window which Johnson and his cupboard of morons turned down. And whilst covid has indeed damaged the economy, factually, reporting shows that brexit has been worse for the economy on its own than covid was or would have been.
…Well, it… it’s the war in Ukraine then!
Nope. Again, all of this was predicted by knowledgeable economic forecast.

Here’s the thing. Economic forecasts can vastly differ depending on the pessimism of the economists conducting them. Think of it like going fishing on a lake. On a sunny, warm day with the right gear, the right lures, a flask of nice strong coffee and having long experience of how to fish the waters, the chances of you getting a good haul are pretty high. On a rainy day with a stick and some string and a hook fashioned from one of Boris Johnson’s eyebrow hairs you’re probably not coming home with a bounty.
Economists who were pro brexit were operating on the idea that everything would go our way, that the EU would capitulate and/or be friendly and a myriad other things that didn’t happen.
But the big difference is, economists whose forecasts looked bad were this terrible, inescapable thing: realistic.

Every single thing brexit was meant to give was a lie.
Freedom from EU bureaucracy. We still have to trade with them so, you’ve actually got more paperwork now.
Cheaper prices. Everything is more expensive both at retail price and for import.
Cheaper mortgages. Hahaha.
The chance for US to make decisions about our OWN laws! I attended 17 protests featuring thousands of people about voter ID, about the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill and they still passed, I’ve signed at least 30 petitions calling for everything from benefit reassessment for the poorest to windfall taxes to early elections- all ignored.
Every single promise a twisted straw mat of lies, beckoned over by Nigel Farage who promised it was a king size mattress.

Brexit was never going to do well, and maybe its impact wouldn’t have been so gargantuan if we didn’t have 145 crises all kicking off at once, now with Liz Truss picking up a shovel to heap more on top of us- but it is now an abject disaster. And I’ve noticed a trend with brexit conservative types. It’s always the “imagine the for instances that’d be much worse!!”
“Imagine if Jezebel Cranglin had gotten in, we’d have empty she… I mean, the pound would be worth nothi- we, I mean… we could be at WAR…oh I…”.
Or of course the “but imagine if these things HADN’T happened!”
“Well yes BUT if covid hadn’t happened we’d be FINE”.
These people live in their own imagination constantly, in a world where the bad stuff didn’t happen and the good stuff did- I invite them out of their own heads to observe reality.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a maladaptive daydreamer who spends my time in a fantasy world when I’m not working. We don’t live in a world where Corbyn won, we don’t live in a world without covid or war or whatever else you want to sling blame at. So I ask you brexit enthusiasts to STOP living in your imagination, fun as it is. You imagined your way to sunlit uplands and ended up with human offal floating in your rivers. You imagined a nightmare scenario with Corbyn at the helm and yet every example of how that would have been bad is happening, and you imagined brexit would have been a rip roaring success in a world where exactly what’s happened didn’t happen.

The fact is, we’re all inconceivably small. Tiny people, less than cogs in a huge machine rolling around trying to reach equilibrium and the referendum presented a chance to change this. Finally, we little people could have a say about the direction of the machine! We could change our very destiny! And so many people fixated on the EU as the cause of all their problems! It’s the EU’s fault my job doesn’t pay well, it’s the EU’s fault my business is failing! It’s the EU’s fault that Sarah my wife caught me cheating and kicked me out, please let me back in Sarah I just want my cufflinks… And they grasped that sad conclusion with all their might! They stuck both fingers up at the EU. Defining their entire life around putting a pencil x in a box. The biggest decision in their lives, and it’s been a wash. No wonder brexiteers are so strident in their defence of it: it was their one chance to improve their lives and they fucked it by choosing the options smarter people told them not to. Brexit is the equivalent of a toddler grabbing a hot pan and then yelling at their brother, who stood there telling them not to the whole time. SHUT UP TIMMY, WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP ME. We did try of course, but then you get told freedom of speech, that they’re tired of experts. BREAKING NEWS: Cutting your nose off to spite your face quite painful actually- more at 11.

So to brexiteers across the land I have some sage advice: get real. Wake up. Stop living in a fantasy world where you blame “remoaners” or “socialists” or “the nasty EU”, or Covid or political correctness gone mad or war… and start blaming brexit. It wasn’t the brexit you wanted, right? The brexit you wanted was in your imagination: what you wanted was for your life to improve and you’ve voted against that consistently for years.
So just for good measure, for me, for my own mental health- start taking some of the blame yourselves. You were warned.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

It is time to move on Prime Minister- for the good of the country, go

By Daviemoo

We’re asked to move on from partygate. Just like we were asked to move on from the paterson scandal- move on from PPE VIP lanes, move on from late lockdowns and lacklustre pressers with poorly articulated advice. We’re asked to move on from a brexit that has pushed inflation up and contributed to (though not caused) the cost of living crisis. How many times will we be asked to move on, how many scandals must we endure before our society simply gives way. Johnson courts the rage of a wounded nation and asks our forbearance.
I say no- do you?

The first time Boris Johnson faced recompense for his lies was the last 1980s. He’d shot off an article to the Times newspaper which included a quote from one of his relatives which described a salacious relationship. Readers were enthralled by his piece- until it turned out that Johnson had quite simply made the quote up in its entirety- in fact, his family member had died over 13 years before Johnson had described the events in his now fictional piece. The Times, quite rightly, fired him and Johnson faced a tough brush to scour clean from- that of a lying journalist. But many who know and have known Johnson have always been happy to make excuses for the man- ebullient, funny, a people person. All admirable qualities, until you contrast this with the other side of Johnson. A liar, a philistine, homophobic and most of all desperate to claw his way to the top.

Dominic Cummings today reminded us that Johnson described himself as “the fucking fuhrer” and as Mhairi Black harkened to with her haunting speech against encroaching fascism in Parliament only this week, this is all too close to the truth: Johnson’s unrelenting assault on parliamentary standards, aided and abetted by his cronies and a coalition of people who think he is the best man for the job and people who simply don’t care because they don’t trust any politician, has been an unprecedented ruination of the long standing pillars of democratic surety that have underpinned British living since long before our forefathers began casting out to other nations. Johnson’s ravening of the political codes of honesty, transparency and decency has led to a paralysis within parliament, an impossibility of holding the man to account. Prominent political journalists and MPs alike cringe in embarrassment as they see him trotted out to other nations, ostensibly to serve the role a prime minister should by making links with our fellows across the globe- but, always, without fail we await another gaffe, another stupid quote, another silly outfit or ostentatious speech punctuated with “forgive me…forgive me… forgive me” as he shuffles through his poorly prepared notes.

The office of prime minister was always meant for the best of us- for those amongst us who could rise to the challenge of overseeing a nation of people hopeful to live up to our nation’s history as world leaders, as a nation of hard workers who respect each other. Where has this proud history gone under the frizzy haired stormclouds that forment a Johnson rule.
We often hear “isms” when referencing other political leaders- Blairism being a prime example, and Blairism is not looked favourably upon by a vast swathe of us- so what does “Johnsonism” enclose?
Is it a desperation to reach the top job only to abdicate your duties to beleaguered staffers who get so drunk on power that they will ignore not only sensibility but morality:

Excerpt of the Sue Gray report where flagrant breaches of COVID guidance are written off as a “comms risk”

This is indicative of Johnsonism in its’ essence- Peter Oborne describes the time that he worked under Johnson at the spectator, where Johnson was rarely seen and left the running of things to more talented and able fellows, but was happy to sleuth in to take any credit whether due or not. But the converse is also true- Johnson, as he has done with partygate, is happy to hoist junior staffers on his admittedly short petard. Whilst taking what he calls “full responsibility” he overlooks the release of Allegra Stratton whose crime was to joke about the parties, he overlooks the sacking, moving or redeployment of staff to “shore up” Number 10- surely full throated responsibility would be that of a man humble enough to realise that these events occurred under his leadership and is indicative of a man seen as such a poor leader that they could occur in the first place- a man who realises he cannot lead, should not lead and will therefore step down to allow someone who can to take the reins.

But Johnson only seems comfortable when embroiled in scandal. Selling out his country comes naturally to him, as he did when he allowed himself to be cajoled into switching from remain to leave. Johnson’s only goal has ever been to be given the invisible crown of prime minister, and now it rests heavy upon his head he refuses to be wrested from his seat- no matter the cost.

Of course the world stuffers under this cost of living crisis- but we see other countries rushing to help- Spain implemented the sort of windfall tax labour has pushed for. Germany has issued care packages to its lower paid residents to protect them. Other countries are scrapping VAT. Johnson’s government is too deeply embroiled in the thrashing death throes of self preservation against its own scurrilous actions to actually help people. The usual mealy mouthed promises were mocked in today’s PMQs- what has actually been done to help people he was asked, and all we got was the usual recitation of thousands of nonexistent pounds for people on universal credit and open falsitudes about upcoming relief which are only enacted to bury rage over the Gray report- interspersed as always with fruitless swings at the opposition who haven’t touched power in 12 years and deeply disturbing jibes at leaders passed.

Johnson’s government exists as a self perpetuation of bad governance- the bad governance will continue under Johnson, and Johnson will continue under the bad governance. The tories should be routed from power, torn out root and stem for their open rebellion against their much touted phrase, “the will of the people”.

The will of the people is thus:

Credit YouGov poll

Over sixty percent of the British population has held for months that Johnson should leave his role, because honesty and integrity are not parlance for the working class, they are discs of the spine that holds up British pride in democracy- and Johnson is spineless. If he truly wished to fulfil the will of the people, his next step is clear.

As to his enablers, they fought their way into Downing Street on that very promise- to fulfil the will of the people- even today, they declared that brexit was done, not even a week after the intractable promises Johnson made to blow up his own post brexit trade agreement meaning that negotiations would restart- hardly done, is it? An Irish MP asked Johnson to promise that Brexit wouldn’t deter the government from assisting Irish citizens- he could not fulfil that promise. So is Brexit done, or will we still keep watching British standing in the world’s eyes diminish for the ego of one?
Every MP who stands behind Johnson has signed their own temporary contract. Not one who willingly backed this man and sang his praises will remain in post when the change to remove them comes.

For Johnson’s government to continue is to endorse more despatch box lies, more fragmented promises and more figmentary notions of bettering a country who will only suffer beneath the weight of a man wholly unprepared for the job he has been given by grift, not graft.

To harken back to one of his own MPs during the initial findings of the Downing Street parties- in the name of God, go.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

We don’t need a referendum on net zero- we need sensible public discourse for once

By Daviemoo

As the UK is preparing to sanction Russia for it’s abominable actions in Ukraine, Nigel Farage, eternal hypocrite, is pushing for a referendum against net zero. But I won’t let the mistakes of the Brexit referendum repeat- so lets look at what net zero is, why we need it, and also ask ourselves why we need the opinions of a paid rank hypocrite?

What is “Net Zero?”

A country working towards net zero, is working to reduce it’s emissions of carbon dioxide by changing it’s operating procedures; it doesn’t mean not producing carbon dioxide, it means that we produce little enough CO2 that it’s production is cancelled out as it approaches the atmosphere. More info can be found here.

Working towards net zero will affect everyone from the poorest to the richest, and means ploughing money into infrastructure to prevent the wild usage of personal automobiles which aren’t electric, it means fining companies who do not meet their emissions targets (remember that 90 companies are responsible for almost two thirds of global emissions and then ask yourself who would wish to prevent overhaul in their operations… then follow that money trail back to campaigners like Farage et al).

Why would you be against net zero?

Those who are against this approach usually cite cost to business and infrastructure disruption as their main causes of doubt, plus the simple doubt in global warning: a well documented scientific phenomenon. Loathed politician Michael Gove underscored a very disturbing and important social phenomenon when he said he was “sick of listening to the experts”.

Many others who are against working towards net zero are also those who benefit from the status quo- and at the moment one of those most prominent is all-in-name-but dictator, Vladimir Putin: who, let’s not forget, invested heavily in pushing the UK to vote itself out of the EU.

Underpinning the Brexit referendum and the dire warnings therein, and the dire warnings about net zero that not striving to minimise CO2 fumes will lead to serious consequences for the human race, is the feeling that people just don’t want to entertain reality any more: the idea that we’ll have to change the way we operate to ensure future generations are safe, happy and… well, alive, is simply too much for those who would rather cry glory to an empire that ceased to exist before our grandparents even let out their first cries.

Farage is a master at championing these causes of unreality, from taking back a democracy which was only lost in the fermenting of the Brexit referendum and it’s saturation with Russian disinformation, to asking weekly for seven years for a tough, no nonsense Australia style immigration system only to go red in his already pre-puce face when Australia dared to… use it’s immigration system to say no to a rich man who thought he was exempt from public health rules. He’s always backed the wrong horse, but like other political figures seen as foolish he’s managed to fail upwards- he succeeded in brexit, he succeeded in getting the Conservatives elected by strategically standing MPs down, he’ll likely succeed on a referendum for net zero- but it’s not because the man is an intellectual savant- it’s because he’s backed by those who decide what should be shown and written in our media. We’re saturated with sycophants like him, desperate to peddle the idea that we should be at liberty to do whatever we want forever, heedless of the cost to the next generation.

Nigel Farage is the antithesis of the young, and the scion of older people who made the world what it is and want to ensure it remains so for those working against the rising tide of ignorance- and the literal rising tide.

What does net zero encompass?

Using renewable energy as the core of our energy infrastructure is vital: it’s also easy to do. Some countries are able to subsist on renewable energy in huge masses for prolonged periods of time so this is not exactly out of the norm, yet we’re told it is… that it will cause us untold frustration, that people will lose their jobs: it doesn’t have to be so, because part of the push to net zero is to change people’s jobs to fit into that process.

It also involves the push to ensure businesses are working ethically and cleanly – a lot of businesses are beginning to enshrine green practices in their daily routine but not enough, and certainly not the main contributors.

Net Zero, green new deals… all of these things are nothing to be scared of but for a significant portion of the usual band of reactionary subjects, it appears to be their bogeyman: more scared of wind turbines and solar panels than melting ice caps and burning planets.

It does mean changes to basic infrastructure including travel and transport, including taxing big business, including dismantling our long standing reliance on gas and oil- for the good of the world and those who live on it. Isn’t it strange then, that those who stand against it were also the ones who couldn’t stop complaining about wearing masks during a pandemic? Almost as though other people’s suffering is acceptable if it means they do not have to think… but I digress.

Why a referendum?

Easy: playing on the entitlement of the uneducated.

Don’t take that as an insult. I’m uneducated too: I’m starting a new job involving compliance for medical workers soon, and that’s been my career for ten years. But what do I know, or you know, or what does John at the end of the road who runs a cafe, know about net zero and how it should be achieved?
Every political party had a pledge to meet net zero in their manifesto in 2019; the conservatives included, and though they’ve broken a number of pledges as is their wont, they’re still ostensibly working towards net zero. The reason every party had it as a promise? Because it’s important and it’s inevitable. Once the sea goes up, it doesn’t go back down and every party knows they have to work to mitigate what we’ve already done to the earth. But look at the last referendum as an example of manipulation master classery- allowing anti science thumb suckers like Farage, Hartley-Brewer, Lawrence Fox to comment on something (else) that they are hopelessly ignorant about as if they speak from authority or knowledge is laughable.

Appealing to the angry masses about an issue that only benefits them positively by spinning it as anything else is manipulation, and these spindly sycophants work in concert to do just that, spinning webs of deceit around the public and obfuscating truth with outrage. Unfortunately a complicit media platforms them and barely gives a whisper to actually informed human beings, scientists, those who study the effects of global warming because unfortunately the grim reality of a planet burning in it’s own gases isn’t as entertaining as watching a glassy eyed pundit gripe about having to have another recycling bin outside their 11 room house, one they likely won’t even notice because it’s not them doing the cooking, cleaning or throwing away.

Just look, for a moment, dear reader- critically- at this situation. Pundits will angrily write words about how they don’t want net zero: they do not want to change the way the world works to make it habitable to humans 300 years down the line. What selfishness it is to live in these people’s skins and expect everyone else to kowtow to what you want when what you want is to worsen the lives of future generations.

Ultimately, the only people who win if we keep backing the long hacked out path of fossil fuels are the rich business owners who profit from wrecking our world, oil oligarchs, billionaires like Putin, rich men like Farage who are paid to tell you to vote against your own interests and their lackeys like Isabel Oakeshott. Those who lose? Everyone else. Everyone whose homes will be wiped out by encroaching sea levels, those who cannot drink their own tap water because of fracking, and those future generations living on an inhospitable planet, all again for the sovereignty of “doing what we want for a change” hollered by people who have never, once in their lives, done something they don’t want to do out of sheer childish stubbornness.

Backing net zero is common sense, it’s an investment in the future of the world and it’s also, quite rightly, a spit in the face of the useless pundits whose pockets are fit to burst with dirty money from those who would see us live on a dying planet as long as they get to buy their newest beach house on the burning coast.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

A functional country does not need the army to distribute food

By Daviemoo

The government are drawing up plans to have up to 10,000 army personnel – who are reserve personnel – handle the shortfall in delivery drivers to try and forestall mass hunger issues. Again, I and many others are asking the sensible question – what will it take to wake our fellow Britons up to the reality that we are being overseen by politicians too inept to oversee the basics of admin- never mind a country’s complex issues.

Let’s start with the fact that the 10K army reservists being prepped to be called in to deliver food during the shortage caused by “the pingdemic”, or, as anyone with any common sense has realised- Brexit, are already hauliers and will be called up from their regular job- as Hauliers- to work army reserves- to deliver food. They will call them away from their job bringing goods, to go and do their job… delivering food.

Does it make sense to you? No, it doesn’t me either, or in fact, anyone with even a droplet of common sense swimming lazily through their frontal lobes.

Lets also look at the depth of the problem. What is 100,000 – 10,000?

Its 90,000.

So – we’ll still be short 90,000. But some of that 10K are already doing the job they’re being called away to do, so we’ll still actually be about 93,000 people short.

Even if this arrangement is temporary, we know that to actually resolve the problem, the government will eventually have to offer some sort of work programme to hauliers in the EU to attract them back to the UK to do the job they’re not currently here doing. Firstly, this will infuriate those whose job it already is (and who for some reason think they will be paid more money when the fact is, there is a shortage of bodies to do what they do). Secondly, it will further imperil both the EU and the UK when it comes to rising covid infections- the “third” (it’s the fourth) wave of the pandemic will likely be off the back of whatever the UK does to attract people here to do more haulage.

There’s no denying that the “pingdemic” may have had an impact of course- but this fails to be an excuse now the app has been turned down- it will now only “ping” you under more specific circumstances. So why is the army being drawn up to cover this shortfall? If the app will stop impacting then maybe we could just wait… I saw an article (roughly translated) from Germany, absolutely excoriating the british press for their complicity in pushing the government mandated line of the “Pingdemic”. Every country has covid, every country has an app to trace infections- but only England decided to throw off the brakes. If this was such an error and cause the “pingdemic” a careful partial cautious lockdown would have negated the worst and allowed business to continue as normal, or as the government apparently wished, covid would have torn through the population and caused “herd immunity” quickly – this has not happened for reasons that are still unclear.

Ah- so…it’s because something else is causing the issue, isn’t it.

See how the barest scraping of common sense debunks the myth of the pingdemic being the contributor to empty shelves?

Still the government and British Journalism persist with the lie, enabled by a press trained to clap like sealions, rather than do the job of journalists. Any journalist worth their salt in another country would show the hubris of the government in persisting with Brexit and severing trade during a pandemic (or, in fact, at all…). They don’t mention the terrible deal that the lead negotiator (as I’ve mentioned before) has stated is unserviceable and how we “can’t go on like this”- using the deal that HE negotiated.

Weekly in the UK we are subjected to Lord Frost’s vacuous complaints that the EU is not accommodating the UK. But let me ask the question that Brexiteers should ask themselves:
Why should the EU bow down to us? Why should they recognise our “special relationship”? Why is it up to the EU to renege to make sure that people don’t go hungry here? After all, we’re the ones who voted for this- to the EU, this is ostensibly exactly what we voted for and what our government made a deal for.

Equally, even if the EU is being underhand it’s vital to remember that the EU are bound to make the UK’s dealings harder so as not to incentivise other member states from leaving. Can you blame them for this? The EU relies upon itself to survive, and equally is running as normal without the UK- is the UK Running well without the EU? The empty shelves and delays and escalated prices for deliveries and goods say no.

Johnson as usual has avoided any mention that the repercussions of Brexit are flying in our faces, though apparently the Conservatives expect a mass back bench rebellion when the food shortages hit their supporters and themselves- because predictably, nothing matters to Conservatives unless it directly affects them. Instead he’s spent £150,000 on Union Jacks in a year. He’s spent £100,000 of taxpayer money on new paintings for government premises. He’s floated the idea of ships to pay homage to a king that only fervent royalists cared for. How does any of this- ANY OF IT- help the working class of this country to live well.

It’s confusing to see a country of people adversely affected by these decisions roll over time and time again to accept it- I genuinely am running out of empathy for people who can’t keep up with the obfuscation caused by the press, because there’s only so many times you can draw the Dot to Dot for them to see the clear impact of inept politicians and how that ineptitude often turns into the issues they face- from an education system which may have failed them, to a media that teaches people that all of their woes can be ascribed to the 402 migrants who come to the shores of the UK every day VS the 503 people a week dead of Coronavirus because of Johnson’s desperate need to inflate an economy that threatens to collapse anyway, on to the government itself who seems desperate to impart the lesson that fealty to a flag is more important than a functional health system or fresh food.

The body politic of the UK have formed up around the idea that speaking on Brexit is verboten because we may upset the poor, sensitive Brexiteers. Starmer’s labour won’t point to the chaos unfolding in fear of the splashback from ardent Brexiteers but perhaps that’s exactly what’s needed. It’s time to stop pandering to people who cannot be told common sensical facts without playing whataboutism or denying reality. If you voted for Brexit- and if you support it still – you are enabling this government to play a foolish game of chess with your wellbeing which you see as secondary to an imagined sovereignty. Whatever issues you may have had with the EU are, frankly, imaginary- they didn’t impact on your daily life, especially in the way that the repercussions of leaving have done, except in very rare cases.

Even the deals signed with other countries which, inexplicably, Liz Truss seems to have been headed up to discuss, pale in comparison to the convenience and common sense, not to mention the actual material rebates, of our membership to the EU. We’re also told that the benefits of leaving the EU won’t be felt in our lifetime- so we’re supposed to cope with food shortages, a shortage of staff, no options for relocation without lengthy visa processes, safe in the knowledge that our descendants MAY feel benefits.

People often refer to Johnson as a libertarian, but the only liberties Johnson has fought for is the right for us to die at others’ hands, or to fret over food as the shelves grow barer and barer.

Who needs an oven ready meal when you have an oven ready deal?


There is no “pingdemic”- Brexit- and an inept government- has emptied our shelves

By Daviemoo

Food shelves run empty up and down the country, tensions flaring in Ireland, and the entitled attitude of long term politicians who seem to think that Britain being a world leader in economics 150 years ago entitles us to special dispensation from the people on whom we spit in 2016. Just when is England, specifically, going to admit that Brexit was a mistake so we can start moving forward and repairing it’s fallout?

I’m talking to my friends this morning, almost on the edge of hysterical laughter at how ridiculous things are. With freedom day having passed and seeing daily spreader events taking place and precautions lifting as employers encouraging their staff to delete the track and trace app, you would assume we have enough to deal with – there were reports last night on the 21st of July, that there were NO PICU beds left in the country (paediatric ICU)- these reports, whilst unsubstantiated, came from a senior paediatric doctor via her social media so carry more weight than an anonymous report.

Additionally, outside of healthcare and service roles, workers returning to office after exposure to people now living “as normal” will begin to fall ill and be away from work. The slow crumbling of the UK workforce will come to the fore over the next fortnight as hospital admissions climb at rates we haven’t seen in months. So you’d be forgiven to assume that we have quite enough to worry about, simply as we’re all getting closer and closer to falling sick.

However, if you’re focusing intently on the already imminent disaster of the pandemic, you’ll also be treated to the media’s newest collective spinning of the truth – the “pingdemic” (which, incidentally, is one of the most ridiculous concepts I’ve seen in my 33 years).

The fact that the track and trace app is alerting people to isolate and actually doing its job effectively is a surprise to me- I’ve seen how ineffective the app was at the height of the pandemic, so to see it working to this extent is terrifying- the statistical rates of capture for the app was bad, so if it’s working at this rate- we are in a real mess.

This isn’t a pingdemic- it’s the app doing what we have allowed the government to spend a projected £35 billion on it to do.

As the UK workforce lowers either by actual sickness or isolation, the government flounders out message after message- it’s advised that you must isolate mandatorily or not but dont not isolate if you want to not isolate when you’re advised that you must isolate- it’s the tory way. Fans of three word slogans they are, so perhaps their ongoing message throughout 2020 and 2021 should have been “confuse, distract, ignore”.

But on to the reason I felt the need to write this.

Brexit is, put plainly, a fucking disaster.

It’s already cost more than every payment the UK ever made to the EU. It’s already alienated literal health workers that I had long term connections with- they left the UK because they didn’t feel welcome here by a country that voted to sever ties with their mother countries. It’s caused endless division between people on either side who are convinced that they are right, it’s made families tear themselves apart, it’s allowed the bolstering of authoritarian bluster from a government whose only concern is to hide their deceit and enrich themselves and their fellows. Now, in what I confidently say is still the middle of this worldwide pandemic, it’s causing shortages in food, whilst also increasing the consumer cost of goods.

Additionally, barely a whisper in the press that the new deal that the UK has struck with Australia pales into comparison with the EU and that it also manages to undercut British farmers- another huge demographic who voted leave and are now reaping the costs of their own determination to ignore facts and political forecasting that always warned them (please note that as a country boy myself I’m not blaming all farmers, some I spoke to were very much pro co-operation with the EU). The press is, as I’ve pointed out before, firmly in favour of pushing party lines even in the face of the obvious: journalism seems to have taken a very generous step away from providing the public with what they need to know, and towards telling us what we want to hear for an easy life, and I’m sure the 52% will be reluctant to be told that their decision to TAKE BACK OUR SOVEREIGNTY, TAKE BACK CONTROL and all the other slogans- were a poor decision which should never have been in our hands.

There is a point that I’ve made numerous times and always been attacked for- and it’s not because we made what I still maintain is the wrong decision. My job has almost nothing to do with EU import/export, EU citizenry etc and Brexit has still caused myriad issues. But that is the issue- millions in the UK voted on our membership to the EU with absolutely no idea what it actually meant, what it did or did not do for us, the real positives or negatives. Such debating wizardry should have been left to people whose job it was to understand the finer details- but of course, those people are those like Nigel Farage who for years enjoyed the fruits of the UK’s membership to the EU, and has built a career off of being xenophobic, or Lord Frost, who negotiated the deal so bad that we “cannot carry on as we are” under it’s terms. We were always set to fail, and the issue with the leave campaign is, and was, that they were free to lie- which they did in earnest. The truth is a boring grey little thing and it’s immutable- it can be spun, but facts cannot be changed and the fact was that we were well placed in the EU, that we enjoyed privilege other member states didn’t, that our citizenry benefited from further protections. A lie can be anything! Money for the NHS, money for you, freedom, taking our borders back, booming economy! Sell those lies and of course people will stand behind you- as they did. The reality is, unfortunately, grim.

Fishermen are struggling, we’ve seen more job losses than the Nissan Gigafactory will actually create, I’ve seen multiple healthcare staff (EU, British AND of other nationalities) emigrate prior to or during the transition period listing Brexit as the reason, our standing in the global perception has sunk because of the churlish behaviour of openly xenophobic idiots like Farage or Hopkins, or from the idiocy of a man like Lord Frost who believes his say so means that we can override the Northern Ireland agreement… Let’s just pause there to examine the word “Agreement”. An agreement is not “we can do what we want”, it’s a set of terms which both parties agree to, which dictate the behaviours of each party. It speaks to the long bred line of imagined British superiority that has led to a situation where after four years of negotiations with a trade bloc, our highest place negotiators think they can state “we cannot go on like this” under the terms that THEY agreed for us!

I’ve said it before that it’s not the job of the working class to worry about the economy- that should rest in the hands of those who, as civil servants, are appointed to oversee it- and yet the fallout of their ambivalence hits US! The working class, most directly.

So we have less food, the food we have is more expensive, and the places the scant food is available are also hotbeds for COVID because nobody needs to wear masks or social distance- and with the virulence of the Johnson variant, it doesn’t matter if “only one or two people” break the rules- it will still spread amongst those who do choose to do the right thing.

Ireland as a whole has been caught in the middle of the ridiculous exchanges of the UK and EU from the start of this process- and the EU has not been blameless, much as the more hardcore remainers (I am one) would sometimes protest. It’s pragmatically common sense that the EU would be harsh on an ex partner specifically to discourage others from leaving and facing the same blockades- but to fully heft the weight of this mess on the EU is disingenuous- the continued poor behaviour of the UK (England… Westminster…) brings the selfsame worst case scenarios that we have been predicting and being told about since the day after the UK referendum that set us on this course.

The reason the media, so attuned to the message they should be pushing for the government, are pushing the narrative of the app is to further the rampant infections that are coming. The foolish short term thinking of those in power is that many, many hundreds of thousands- perhaps millions, of people will get sick, recover, and carry on working. No thought about death, disability from long covid, job loss, these people’s families who are dependant on them- no. Force infection through lassitude, blame the citizenry for “not doing what was right” when we’ve seen that the moral mandate of some folk in the UK is to do whatever they want whilst loudly repeating buzzwords like “sovereignty” and “freedom”. They hope that people will delete the NHS track and trace app and that the reported number of infections drop as people just stop caring about reporting their results. They hope that they can blanket the media with distractions as the virus rages and mutates through a disturbingly compliant populace. And they hope to distract from the simple fact that their own lack of expertise in writing trade agreements outside of the European Union means that in addition to this, we face greater cost for less choice of goods. But of course, all in the name of that famous word, sovereignty, I’m sure.