Tag: EU

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.

Ukraine’s betrayal by the UK and the US goes back further than the front lines

By Daviemoo

As Putin continues his descent into public madness, one must begin to wonder exactly what world leaders intend to do about it beyond having taxpayers flood the internet with images of them stood sombrely before country flags, or lighting up our buildings with colours. Will the countries who foisted nuclear disarmament on Ukraine help them in their hour of need, or are we such that abiding by our very word is something we cannot trust?

When the Soviet Union collapsed on 26th December 1991, Ukraine was in possession of the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world. From 1994 and the start of the Nuclear Non Proliferation treaty talks, discussions were had with successor states from the Soviet Union and the elected leaders to convince them that nuclear disarmament would mean true security and peace. These talks were spearheaded by Russia, the UK and the US.

Promises were made that if Ukraine surrendered its nuclear armaments, I.E let them be absorbed by Russia, who promised to dismantle them and discard safely the uranium etc that each warhead composed, they would receive protection and financial restitution. The US also helped to ratify the start treaty, and to safely dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear capabilities, all the while promising safety for the country for it’s compliance.

To understand the depths of the betrayal by Russia, one must only google the Budapest Memorandum: the U.S., and the U.K. agreed to respect the “independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” after the country agreed to give up its nuclear stockpile. Ukraine was also promised that its territorial integrity and political independence will be maintained and that the signatories will not use economic coercion against Ukraine to their own advantage.

Russia has committed unforgivable breaches of the accords and guidance it has signed to respect Ukraine: this is even more serious than a straightforward declaration of war, it is the disrespect of hard-fought legislation that ensured that this situation would never occur. Russia’s Putin has always been the strong-man that idle thumb twiddlers Johnson and Trump want to be, and this is the behaviour of one such as he: breaking accords that were hewn in stone before he ascended to power and crippled Russian freedoms further.

But let’s look to the other two main signatories of the accords, and start breaking down why our response so far has been gallingly lacklustre.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it...The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/25/us/politics/trump-ukraine-transcript.html Part of Trump’s attempt to extort newly elected Zelenskyy

The US President, Donald Trump, was accused of Economically coercing Ukraine in the encroaching Russian skirmishes on its borders and this led to his first impeachment. President Zelenskyy was the height of polite when dealing with Trump and his “if you do what we want we’ll give you the aid we promised you” – tantamount to extortion. The US president had no right whatsoever to force Zelenskyy’s hand- the US OWED Ukraine those weapons without strings. The dilution of serious political discourse means that, not once during his trial, were these accords, promises or the legislation signed mentioned, legislation that meant that they were bound with no strings whatsoever, no delays, to give Ukraine arms to defend their sovereignty.

The UK’s role in failing Ukraine

When it comes to UK involvement, it should have started in 2014 when Russia originally started to encroach on Ukraine but was the usual copper shilling talk of collaboration and assistance, all wooden words and no substance. As escalation continued to the point that Ukraine were requesting arms and armament to defend their borders they were failed by a UK too wrapped up on claiming it’s own imagined sovereignty from its fellow EU collaborators to assist, the sleeve pulling of your friend trying to attract your attention for something important as you discuss something noncommittal. Our refusal to enmire ourselves in international relations again failed when the UK prime minister never once mentioned the Budapest Memorandum in response to the US president’s deceitful behaviour towards Ukraine.

All of these four disparate strings lead us to now. As Russia’s hand is around the throat of Ukraine and Ukraine fights back relentlessly to loosen it’s fingers, the US and UK can be found offering sanctions to Russia and… what else?

Of course, those quick to temper will ask whether I want us to leap in and begin the world war proper and the answer to that is, obviously not. But let me tell you that the actions taken are nothing- nothing to what was promised to Ukraine if they followed along with nuclear disarmament.

We also seem to be hitting the wrong people in the chest with whatever punches thrown: Anti Russian sentiment has swept the UK, with many people forgetting that some people left Russia to avoid the black cloth of Putin’s ever more sinister regime. Those linked to Putin’s Russia and Russia themselves should of course be sanctioned with the heaviest barriers possible to levy punishment upon the Russian oligarchs powering this war including Putin himself. And when it comes to sanctions, a worrying lackadaisicality seems to permeate the messages from Westminster: had we been in lockstep with the EU it’s possible that we’d have done real, speedy damage to the Putin regime and Russian actions towards Ukraine. Instead we have our foreign secretary desperate to play dress-up at every given opportunity.

Liz Truss has been using the forment of war to sell herself as the next Iron Lady, forgetting perhaps that she’s more akin to a warm slice of processed cheese than any type of metal. Truss’ insistence on being photographed in tanks, with Russian fur hats and stood proudly in front of flags whilst foreign diplomats call her thinks akin to stupid or a warmonger are truly a deep look into a rotten cabinet: filled with the maggots of Johnson’s political punditry and the sycophants working to hold the shaking wood up as it continues it’s slow motion crumble to the floor.

Truss’ desperation to parallel herself with Thatcher is not lost on those of us on the left who were, and still are, hurt by the regressive policies of both politicians

Truss’ stupidity has been aired for the world to see as, due to her idiotic commentary, Russia stepped up it’s readiness to deploy nuclear retaliation: if ever there was a sign that she is out of her depth it is this.

Then we come to Priti Patel, Home Secretary whose current role should solidly revolve around ways to waive visa restrictions on Ukrainian refugees. Patel linked an article recently on her twitter, clearly fervently hoping that the last bastions of conservative supporters wouldn’t read and only mindlessly cheer at her efforts to help Ukranians: the literature linked proved that the UK is doing less than nothing, including (as later defended in a now deleted tweet by Patel’s colleague)… offering fruit picking visas or allowing people with family in the UK to flee.

In all it appears the UK will offer 100,000 Ukrainians the “right” of abode in the uk. Ukraine has a population of 44.13 million people.

Countries like Ireland have thrown open their doors. EU member states are negotiating swift action to allow Ukrainians to enter their countries. The UK is asking, “Well what can you do for us while you’re here”.

And at the head of the rotten snake that is UK government, Boris Johnson.

We’ve seen for ourselves the depths Johnson will go to in his desperation to distance himself from the dirty actions and money that so motivates his party: changing parliamentary rules to allow his fellows to keep their lucrative second jobs recommending companies who were ill equipped to give diagnostics during the pandemic, protecting a health secretary who was sleeping with an appointee to his team and is now on some ill advised sympathy tour. Johnson has utterly besmirched international relations: promising to lay down the worst of sanctions and barely scratching the surface and as always cosplaying the concerned leader as he flits from country to country, dishevelled and heavy breathing down the mic as terrified journalists beg us for help.

I’m not a diplomat, nor am I a politician. But I am an Englishman and I was told from day 1 at my grandfather (a deeply, deeply patriotic man) that we would always do what is right and abide by our words with deeds.
We promised years ago that we would assist Ukraine in maintaining it’s sovereignty: we are failing.
We promised protection for those from Ukraine: we are failing.

Our predecessors would reel in shame

The Brits of the past who are so often dredged up by anti maskers or by those telling us we need to face poverty and hunger with blitz spirit, would be even more ashamed of our shambolic response to the Russian encroachment on Ukrainian territory than they would be of our glib sublimation to a government who, last night, stripped us of the right to “protest loudly”. A peoples who promised to work collaboratively with another nation to keep it safe and prosperous has been too busy negotiating it’s way out of the extrication of the EU bloc at our own cost.

The EU seems united in it’s efforts to defeat the enemy of Putin. The UK’s populace is still reeling from the survival of a PM who couldn’t follow the law, still arguing about whether you can call yourself the best country in the world if 13% of the population is paid below the minimum salary for survival. But as the UK continues it’s now fully wilful descent into the quagmire of plainly Putin enabled corruption pouring sinuously across the floors of Westminster, one must wonder: if we don’t abide by the accords we sign, accords that do not weather or change with time or with EU status- what do we abide by? What are we? And is this- corrupt, lazy and poor- the legacy of Britain under Johnson?

Forget not, of course, that this is the government who can’t even follow its own manifesto promises: “the cost of covid” they say, trusting in a populace too beaten down by years of nationalistic jingoism to realise that all of the covid debt has been repurchased and isn’t actual debt in the pockets of the nation. Johnson can’t be trusted to adhere to the promises that let him ascend to the highest office, nor to the litigation he seconded for our “new relationship” with the EU member states.

Do we truly believe that he can be trusted to lend aid to an ally who we were bound in honour and duty to assist? And if not: how do we ensure we do what is right by our friends and fellows abroad in spite of a man in charge who we as a populace, cannot trust to do the right and honourable thing? If we cannot trust in our government to abide by long agreed promises, how can we trust them to do right by us? The answer, I fear, is that we cannot.

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.