It seems the media are trying to make it seem that the UK has won a victory over the European Union in proposing a way to end the deadlock over how goods get to – and pass through – Northern Ireland on their way to the Republic (EU) or the rest of the UK.
In fact, the plan was proposed by the EU in 2021 and rejected by the then-UK government, headed by Boris Johnson.
Rishi Sunak’s administration has merely resurrected it and put it back before the EU, whose representatives are quite happy to go along with it – because they suggested it in the first place!
Here’s Maximilien Robespierre to tell you a little more:
And here’s Phil Moorhouse of A Different Bias, who goes a little further into detail about the way the media – both here and in Ireland – have been whitewashing the facts:
How can you trust a government that tries to gaslight you into thinking it has won a victory over other nations, with their own strategy – or national news media that go along with the lie?
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Fortunately there has been some coverage on the social media. Want to see some?
Here’s the RMT’s Mick Lynch:
Eddie Dempsey:
Jeremy Corbyn:
NHS Doctor Rita Issa:
So: 10,000 people came to the event in London alone, and it wasn’t worth reporting on the BBC (apparently).
Dozens more events took place across the UK and they weren’t worth reporting either (apparently).
Perhaps we should all switch to foreign news outlets, like “nurseybird”?
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Lying: Boris Johnson has fed us a lot of diseased tripe about Covid-19 since February 2020 and the news media have been happy to help him. They’re still doing it now.
Feeling good about yourself because you’re double-vaccinated and the Tories have ended social distancing rules? How do you feel about this, then?
According to the media the pandemic is over. Unfortunately not for the 181 poor souls who died yesterday or the near 40k infected.
I know what some of you will say: it’s still better than everywhere else because Boris Johnson and his crooks have done such a good job with the vaccine. Right?
UK has highest COVID rate in Western Europe – 40,000 new cases reported yesterday. Other countries performing better due to combo of vaccine uptake and social distancing. Not either/or but both. This should be our leading story today. Take the vaccine, wear masks, save lives.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s someone who’s just back from abroad:
Just arrived this morning back in plague island after 2 1/2 months in France. 1st pee break maybe 1% of people wearing a mask OMFG… I’ve just read the uk had 40k infections yesterday. But the govt say it’s all over.
The death toll since Johnson’s so-called Freedom Day (July 19) is appalling – and families of the deceased are being urged to take action:
Twelve thousand, six hundred and seventy-five Covid victims have died since the abandonment of all caution on "freedom day". May their souls rest in peace, and may their families rise in fury.
A class-action civil lawsuit against the government is sorely needed—perhaps even criminal charges filed against politicians for gross negligence manslaughter.
And nearly as many more people are expected to die before Christmas – who would live if Johnson only saw sense and re-imposed life-saving restrictions. Ah, but he’s on his holibobs, isn’t he?
>10000 people have died of covid since 19 Jul when all restrictions were lifted. At current rates 8000+ will not live to celebrate xmas. At least half of them would not die if we retain some measures considered mild by most other countries.
Meanwhile the media are feeding is misinformation. Consider the BBC’s claims that the vaccination programme is good reason to excuse the government for the tens of thousands of deaths it caused at the start of the pandemic crisis:
BBC News says the success of the vaccination programme has redeemed the faults made earlier in the pandemic. Don’t agree, and it’s a total insult to everyone who has died, their families and friends
— Annrj#3.5%#FBPE#Wearamask#NeverEmbracingBrexit (@AnnJarvis13) October 12, 2021
It is reckoned that 20,000 people died because of mistakes made in the first few weeks of the crisis. That’s as many as are expected to have died between July 19 and December 25, after Johnson’s Freedom Day stunt.
Oh, and then there’s this:
Apparently, 75% of covid patients in hospital, have been double jabbed ?
Yes. Why are the deaths 6x higher *with* the jabs than they were last year without them? Anyone? https://t.co/LOlJTInxQX
— Rhiannon of Palestine 🏴 🇵🇸 (@rhiannon_arian) October 14, 2021
And still the Tory apologists leap forward to excuse them. Jolyon Rubinstein is (almost) right on the button with his comment below (one Tory has stepped forward to apologise – although he’s nobody important):
Just take this in. The worst public health response EVER in U.K. history. Not ONE apology from a Minister. NO responsibility taken. NO resignations. PM on HOLIDAY. 130k dead. 20k zoom funerals. This is England.
Along came Ryan (below) to let the Tories off the hook with a lot of twaddle.
Blame game gets us nowhere
It’s not like there’s a play book or an instruction manual for this type of event it was play it by ear, listen to expert advice and take action accordingly.
This was not inflicted on us by the government (as far as we know) it’s a natural disaster
If the blame game gets us nowhere, why is Health Secretary Sajid Javid preparing to blame GPs for failing to hold enough face-to-face appointments with patients, after creating a funding scheme that doesn’t help?
Not only that, but we know that the government didn’t pay attention to expert advice and take action accordingly.
Covid-19 is indeed (partially) a natural disaster, but it is one that has been made much worse by Boris Johnson and his cronies.
The situation is crystallised by the hypocrisy of the “He’s doing his best” narrative about Boris Johnson:
This week 250 children in England will be hospitalised with Covid. 2 or 3 will die. A thousand adults will die. Meanwhile, our PM is "doing the best he can". pic.twitter.com/qKGvisZ8g2
Yes, he’s “doing his best” by pretending to be Picasso in some paradise villa. Meanwhile:
Can anyone explain why as a Dr I can 'do my best' but make 1 fatal mistake; be sued & possibly lose my career but a PM can make a series of culpable errors costing 1,000s their lives and folk go 'Oh bless, he needs a holiday'?
I am angry that even in the face of a damming report the media states ‘Boris was doing his best’. On 19.03.2020 he said “I am confident we can send Covid packing and turn the tide of the outbreak in 12 weeks.” We now have one of the highest death rates in the world. His best?
Of course we know why Johnson took his holiday this week. It was to avoid having to answer the damning report on the government’s response to Covid-19 that became public this week.
He left that to his ministers, including a Health Secretary who hasn’t even bothered to read it…
The health secretary said: ”I actually haven’t had the opportunity to study every word of the report." https://t.co/wzEGIp5pdI
… and a former Health Secretary who lied to us that one of the countries that has performed best in handling the pandemic is now doing worse than the UK. It isn’t. New Zealand is much, much healthier than we are:
Jeremy Hunt has twice said that New Zealand is now doing worse than the UK on Covid. Here are the stats for New Zealand since the start of the pandemic: Total cases in New Zealand: 4,704 Total Covid deaths in New Zealand: 28#r4today#FactCheck
The situation in the UK is about to get much, much worse. And that will happen because your Tory government couldn’t be bothered to prevent it, and because its complacent, client news media couldn’t be bothered to warn you.
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It’s not just Vox Political that you need – any social media commentary site that actually criticises the government rather than acting as its stenographer will do.
Professor Simon Wren-Lewis has put the situation in a nutshell with his own latest blogpost on Mainly Macro.
He states that Boris Johnson’s dictatorship is beyond Parliamentary control, and he has the mainstream media in his pocket.
He uses the decision to cut aid funding to foreign countries from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent as an example:
A large number of Conservative MPs were unhappy with this, and wanted to use parliament to reverse this cut. The parliament’s speaker ruled their attempt invalid, but requested the government to allow a vote on the issue. The government refused.
The executive increasingly views parliament with contempt.
We knew this government thought little of parliamentary sovereignty when it closed it down, illegally, before the last election. The courts forced it to retract that measure, so now the government is intending to pass laws that would prevent the courts doing so again.
Of course, Parliament could pass a motion of “no confidence” in this dictatorship – but Prof Wren-Lewis rightly points out that “that is never going to happen while Johnson looks like winning the next election. As a result, parliament has no effective control over what this government does.”
Yes, it’s corrupt. But it’s the system we have.
Prof Wren-Lewis goes on to mention a series of scandals involving Johnson’s ministers: Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson, Priti Patel, and Robert Jenrick.
Did he sack any of those ministers for corruption and dishonesty? Of course not – and Prof Wren-Lewis puts his finger on the reason: “They are his people, and nothing bad is going to come from keeping the ministers he chose in the job… The key is that this government is totally unaccountable, and does just what it likes.”
And the reason it can do what it likes – more than any other – is the fact that Johnson controls the UK’s mass media. And that means he can control what you think about him:
For a large part of the press, Johnson is their Prime Minister. They became propaganda outlets to persuade people to vote for Brexit, and they have remained propaganda outlets supporting the government ever since.
The extent to which the right wing press has become the propaganda arm of the right in the Tory party has steadily increased over the last few decades.
Prof Wren-Lewis rightly narrows his focus down to the BBC. The corporation has a huge, 70 per cent, share of the current affairs information that gets into your home and into your head:
The big change, begun by Thatcher and Cameron and completed by Johnson, is to tame the BBC. This is hardly surprising, when party donors are appointed to key positions and the government keeps attacking the BBC’s outputs, income and even its existence.
The BBC does not push propaganda, but they do not take it on either, giving the press a largely open field for their propaganda to work.
They avoid the truth if it embarrasses the government, and when its reporters do tell things straight, they are put down by the BBC’s leadership.
Because of the way the BBC fails in its reporting, even things that do have a large impact on voters, like tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, will never be described in those terms.
That lack of media accountability allows Johnson to ignore his scientists, and put personal ‘freedom’ above saving lives and the economy. This is what happens when the government becomes unaccountable. It is allowed to make mistakes costing lives, and pays no price for these mistakes.
What does this mean for you – the news viewer/reader and voter?
See for yourself:
The only accountability that has any influence on this government is the electorate. But because of its natural advantage in the media, and unfortunately an opposition that seems pretty ineffective beyond PMQs, that influence on the government is partial and weak.
Issues most voters will not notice, because their only sight of them is a news item towards the end of a bulletin (like the government breaking the law on contracts), can be safely ignored by the government.
That means your attention is diverted away from criticism of the Johnson government’s many failings.
You are told that everything is running swimmingly by the government’s front man, whose upbeat turn of phrase and mop of deliberately-messy blond hair hides his “duper’s delight” smile that says he is lying to you.
You believe him when he tells you the vaccination programme is keeping you safe, even though cases of Delta Variant Covid-19 infections are skyrocketing.
You don’t believe he has screwed up the economy with his duff Brexit trade deals, or that he has jeopardised the peace in Northern Ireland, or any number of other idiocies for which he is responsible – because you simply don’t know about them.
That’s where I come in.
Vox Political has provided consistent criticism of the UK’s politicians for very nearly 10 years.
That means when Daniel Kawczynski apologised for bullying, I was able to put it in context and point out it is not a minor incident.
It means when Priti Patel supports football fans who boo protests against racism, I can point out all the incidents in her career that show she is a racist too.
It means I can highlight Tory corruption whenever it surfaces.
And that means the UK’s electorate should be reading Vox Political – right?
But only a tiny fraction of the politically-oriented public does – because the mass media ignore the work done here (for obvious reasons – they support the Tories and don’t want to publicise anybody who doesn’t) and the social media platforms push sites like this one down your newsfeeds so you don’t realise we’re here.
The ultimate aim is to starve us out of business so there’s nobody left to object when they spoonfeed you their Tory-approved falsehoods, anaesthetising you into supporting Johnson’s crowd while they strip you of all the hard-won freedoms your ancestors gained over the last hundred years and more.
As I say, Vox Political isn’t the only critical social media site available. But times have been hard over the year (and more) of Covid-19. Readerships have fallen and some of us are in danger.
So, please do yourself – and everybody you know – a favour.
Give us a boost, every chance you get.
Promote us to your friends and family members when we highlight the facts that contrast so strongly with the fairy stories you see on the BBC News.
The only way to change people’s minds is one at a time – but that can’t happen if everybody is ignoring the facts and turning down the chance to explain them.
“Perfectly safe”: this photo was taken on a school staircase after Boris Johnson ruled that it was “perfectly safe” for children to go back there in September – no social distancing, no PPE… not safe at all. Now he is planning to do it all again, with infection rates nearly seven times higher than when this image was made.
Boris Johnson loves announcing big plans without giving us the facts and figures behind them, and he has done it again with school reopening.
How humiliating for him that it has been up to school pupil Jamal Elaheebocus to explain that when schools were recklessly reopened in June last year, one in 1,100 people were infected with Covid-19. When they were recklessly reopened in September, this had fallen to one in 2,000.
In mid-February, the infection rate was one in 115 people. It is hoped this will have fallen to one in 300 but that is nearly seven times more than in September last year – and look how that turned out!
Jamal reminds us of a few more uncomfortable truths:
the prevalence of the virus in communities remains high. As Johnson himself admitted on January 4, schools are vectors of transmission.
To any of us working or studying in schools, the reasons why schools are hotspots for infection are obvious.
Fitting thirty students and a teacher in a classroom makes social distancing impossible, overcrowded buildings means that several year groups who are separate bubbles then mix together.
Students are then packed on buses and trains to get home, spreading infection not only among themselves but among the wider public as well.
The latest data from Imperial’s React programme showed that 5 to 12 year olds had the second highest infection rate of any age group. Given this, there is no doubt that schools will increase the infection rate again. The difference this time is that infection rates will be much higher.
While the vaccine may help limit the rise in infection to an extent, infection rates will undoubtedly increase. This is a reckless gamble just to get children into schools for three weeks before Easter holidays.
Yes.
So why is Johnson doing it?
This was inevitable, thanks to the pressure from the mainstream media and Keir Starmer.
How low Labour has sunk! Its leader is now counted among those responsible for inflicting an inevitable increase in Covid-19 infections on the UK – yet again. People will die because Starmer did this.
Yes, some of the arguments in favour of re-opening schools have influence – but only because prolonged closures have placed pupils at the mercy of the Tories’ neoliberal system – one that Starmer wholeheartedly supports.
The combined incompetence of the government and the cruelty of the neoliberal system has meant many kids have missed out on free school meals, families are struggling to cope in overcrowded homes and kids have not been able to access online learning because of lack of access to a laptop or good broadband.
Lockdown has been made so difficult for school pupils because of the government’s decision to continue to punish the poorest in society. It is a disgrace that the Tories and the right-wing media are attempting to manipulate the stress and hardship and use it to back up their reckless campaign to open up society and let the virus run rampage.
It is a disgrace.
And the Tories’ adherence to the neoliberal system that demands minimal investment for maximum return (to the very, very rich) means that the reopening will be done on the cheap.
Jamal proposes a series of measures to make schools safe – or at least safer. None of them have been supported – or even mentioned – by Boris Johnson because they cost money.
Teachers should be prioritised for the vaccine since they will be mixing with such a large number of people. This should have been done months ago and as more and more of the clinically vulnerable and elderly are vaccinated, there is no reason not to now prioritise teachers.
There should also be plans to repurpose public buildings as classrooms or put money into new buildings on school sites to facilitate social distancing in classrooms and allow for proper separation of year group bubbles.
Supply teachers and newly-qualified teachers who are not employed can be utilised to allow for smaller class sizes and more social distancing.
The vaccine is not the cure-all that Johnson and his cronies have claimed. It wont protect you as fully as you think, and it won’t protect as many people as you think.
And, of course, it has only been applied to a minority of the population – on a first-dose basis.
How sad that Johnson is so keen to prolong the UK’s Covid-19 agony, just to please his backbenchers, the baying hounds of the mass media… and Keir Starmer.
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Tony Blair: He might look tight-lipped in this image but when he opens his mouth, he’s dangerous.
New Labour has-been and alleged war criminal Tony Blair has been trying to be relevant again.
His fan club has been singing his praises after he announced an outline plan of what Boris Johnson’s government should be doing during it’s four-week November lockdown in England.
And fair play to him – at least he has a plan. Johnson’s will be to give even more of your money to private-enterprise ‘test, track and trace’ snake-oil charlatans who won’t deliver anything and wait for herd immunity to kick in, no matter how many people die before it does.
Here’s Blair’s plan:
Tony Blair on #r4today: What we’re suggesting is we use November to do 4 things: look at the acceleration of deployment of vaccines; accelerate the deployment of therapeutics drugs; appoint a Minister for Testing now; & put in place the best data system.https://t.co/FlZMnSCns7
You see, the vaccines he wants to deploy have not been proven safe – or even particularly effective – yet, and look at the kind of people supporting him on it:
Tony Blair making a very sensible case right now on Today re: vaccine deployment.
If, as seems to be the case, the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and only debate is whether it is 40 or 80 percent effective then what the hell are we waiting for? Get it out now.
(Tom Harwood writes for the odious Guido Fawkes Tory-support blog. If he’s supporting Tony Blair, what does that make Blair?)
So Tony Blair seems to be suggesting that we take a vaccine now, before it's been proven safe and before we are 100% certain that it won't kill us all in a few months. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
In fact, Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs in 1991, more than a decade before Blair made the speech quoted above.
But the UK still went to war in Iraq – and that’s why many of us want to see Blair tried in The Hague for war crimes.
Looking at it objectively, would you put your health in the hands of this reckless cowboy?
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“Tell the truth”: The ‘pink boat’ at Oxford Circus became a symbol of the Extinction Rebellion protest.
It turns out Michael Gove didn’t “get the message” after all.
The nation’s Environment Secretary has done nothing to respond to the environmental catastrophe highlighted by the Extinction Rebellion protests in London over the last two weeks.
Instead it has fallen to Jeremy Corbyn – much-maligned by dimwits – to bring the matter to Parliament for a vote.
I was talking about this issue with a friend last week, and he said that people here in the United Kingdom think they are insulated from climate crisis – that we live in a society that is well-enough ordered that it can survive an emergency. That they didn’t “get the message” either.
Because if the climate emergency goes much further, supplies of food will break down. Crops will fail; even more animals will die (half of the world’s species have already gone, within This Writer’s lifetime).
Even here in the UK, my friend said, people will be fighting each other on the streets for the last precious morsels of food.
That’s if this goes too far.
The message to humanity is simple: Change or die.
But people like Mr Gove, and the big business interests he prefers to represent instead of the people who elected him, still need to “get the message”.
Perhaps it is time to put the “rebellion” into the name of Extinction Rebellion.
Perhaps it is time to make a list of the people who are perpetuating the climate catastrophe; the people responsible for the planet’s sixth extinction event (which is what we’re going through right now). They are the worst mass-murderers in history so we really do need to record their names in our history books.
And perhaps it is time to put them up against a wall and put the message to them in the bluntest, most immediate terms: “Change or die.”
I know. It’s an unusual comment for This Writer. Usually I am the strongest advocate of peaceful methods. But “Change or die” – right?
Perhaps we could start with Mr Gove.
Labour will force a vote on Wednesday to try to make the UK the world’s first country to declare a climate emergency.
Senior party figures confirmed they will use their opposition day in the Commons to move the environment to the top of the agenda.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Extinction Rebellion protests in London and other cities, in which 1,100 were arrested, had been a “wake up call” and he would urge the Government to act.
He said: “Only concerted government intervention through a Green Industrial Revolution can deliver this scale of change. We can and will harness the power of new technologies for social and environmental justice.”
Extra: Here are a few more names to add to the list – the leaders of the company that has been given oil-drilling rights in the Golan Heights by Israel, which has been illegally occupying this part of Syria for decades.
Here they are:
This lot are the true danger to our planet and civilised society. Not immigrants Not socialism Not Muslims. Vote @UKLabour if you want a leader with the guts to stand to to Big Business and promote world peace.#VoteLabourMay2pic.twitter.com/RLFGJqllwu
That’s Genie Energy: Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, James Woolsey, Bill Richardson, Larry Summers, Michael Steinhardt and Jacob Rothschild.
Hmm. A Rothschild – the name that has become synonymous with the anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews being in control of the world’s money, or some such nonsense.
Do you think he’s on that board so its critics can be accused of anti-Semitism?
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I think it’s long enough after the events for This Writer to admit that I used to put acrostics into some of the stories I wrote in newspapers.
An acrostic is a hidden message in a larger text, in which some letters are used to form words – most commonly the first letter in each paragraph.
I wrote acrostics into my stories as an act of rebellion if I was being asked to produce what are known as “puff” pieces – publicity for third parties that have no news value – or if an editor had asked me to obscure the real news value in favour of an angle that was not appropriate. Some of the words I used were very salty indeed but I knew that very few people would realise what I was doing.
Check out the word spelt out by the first letters in each paragraph of the following letter, in which multiple members of Donald Trump’s arts and humanities committee walk out on him:
“Resist.”
Please do, America.
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Following the announcement that it will prioritise corporate news media over the social media, Facebook is in the wrong group in this image.
No doubt some of you will say this should be no surprise, but it is worth spreading the word – otherwise the corporations will win without you knowing it.
Remember when This Site reported that Facebook has altered its algorithms in order to push social media posts down your News Feed, in an attempt to deny you access to the articles you want to read while keeping you unaware of the fact? Refresh your memory here.
Yesterday This Site commented on a Guardian article that attempted to justify the mainstream press and trash the social media. I said trying to send us back to sleep was not the answer and the newspaper – which is struggling financially – should take a leaf out of our book and encourage people to get awake, aware and critical.
The Graun piece was partly inspired by a clip of “professional controversialist” and member of Justice4Grenfell, Ismahil Blagrove, tearing metaphorical strips off a Sky News reporter who was sent to cover the aftermath of the blaze.
Mr Blagrove makes many good points about the mainstream media in this clip, from June 26, which hasn’t received anything like enough attention [WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE]:
Now Facebook has doubled down on its betrayal of the social media – for whom it is the most popular platform but has become the main betrayer – by announcing publicly that it will support corporate “news” (and I put that word in quotation marks for a reason) over the social media.
Here’s how Redacted Tonight covered that particular story. It’s an American organisation but the message applies just as much to people in any other nation.
The publicity blurb for this piece reads: “Facebook announced it would give priority to “fast-loading” media, but what does that really mean?? It means billions of people will be fed mostly corporate and mainstream media on Facebook. They will be far less likely to see alternative voices.”
Here it is [AGAIN, BE WARNED: STRONG LANGUAGE]:
The writing may be on the Facebook wall but it won’t be seen if Mark Zuckerberg’s minions have their way.
We need strategies to deal with this; to continue getting our messages out to people who want to know what’s really going on in the world but aren’t savvy enough to know how to find our work.
Putting messages at the end of our articles (or the beginning) calling for readers to subscribe to our sites won’t be enough; too few people will. We need a better plan.
I’m open to suggestions.
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The front page of German newspaper Die Welt after Theresa May’s Brexit speech. The cover blurb, translated, says: “Prime Minister Theresa May leads Great Britain into isolation”.
Confession time: On Tuesday afternoon I had a brilliant idea to contrast the reaction to Theresa May’s Brexit speech – as provided by her supporters in the right-wing press – with the response from real people on the social media, and from the press and politicians in other countries, inside and outside the EU.
I would have published comments about different parts of her speech next to each other, with a ‘pro’ comment following an ‘anti’ remark, to demonstrate the strengths – or weaknesses – of each view. Good idea, right?
There’s only one problem: It’s impossible.
The amount of commentary coming in is like an avalanche, and with new stories happening all the time – plus real-life pressures here at Vox Towers – there simply isn’t enough time in the day.
So, with apologies, I’ll just have to settle for publishing the comments I’ve collected against Mrs May below – all in a jumble – and ask you to pick your own choices from the right-wing gibberish we’ve seen in the likes of the Daily Mail.
Shall we begin?
First time back in continental Europe since Brexit. I was once so proud to be part of the Union. Now embarrassed to be British.
“From professing a tepid and bashful Europeanism when she was Home Secretary under David Cameron, [Theresa May] now supports a shameful, xenophobic nationalism… The nub of her 12-point programme is this exclusion of the UK from the market of 500 million consumers, which will fall to 65 million, plus those Britain can add through new trade deals – something hypothetical and difficult for a country which after four decades has lost experience in this arena outside the Union. Everything in May’s speech grated. The promise of a “positive” accord is fallacious. It is not positive to spurn European citizens, nor to discriminate against residents. Nor does it make sense to threaten the Europeans with whom she will have to negotiate over the next two years.” Spanish newspaper El Pais.
“Theresa May is ready to turn the UK into a low-tax, low-regulation haven after Brexit, her spokesperson confirmed today”. There was more. “Asked whether the prime minister backed comments made by the Chancellor Philip Hammond that the UK could be forced to abandon its ‘European economy with European style taxation’ her spokesperson said she ‘stands ready to do so’”. UK Business Insider
“May will make clear that the UK will default to slashing taxes and regulation if we don’t agree an acceptable trade deal with the EU – in other words she will say ‘be nice or it’s commercial war’”. Robert Peston
Any Trades Union that backed Brexit must now know they have been had for mugs. Their members are set to be royally shafted. As to all those working class voters UKIP has been targeting – they will feel the full force of being made even more flexible, even more disposable, even less protected than before. Tim Fenton
Leaving the single market and turning the UK into a low-tax, low-regulation island off the coast of continental Europe may be how many Tory Brexiteers see our future — but for anyone who relies on the protections at work, who relies on public services or who provides those services, that would be a disaster. No-one voted to leave the EU to weaken their rights at work. Dave Prentis, Unison
Announcing that Britain will inevitably leave the single market, before the negotiations have even begun, is a disaster for the British economy. Accepting that immigration must trump all other concerns, whatever the cost, is a political failure. Suggesting that Britain may walk away from negotiations with no deal at all — as May has done — shows an astonishing lack of ambition. Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin, Left Foot Forward
For months, May has promised ‘the best deal for the United Kingdom’, but instead she’s delivered this. It’s a plan that — by her own admission https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/oct/25/theresa-may-private-brexit-warning-speech-to-goldman-sachs-audio — will leave the country materially worse off. We have to assume that some of her ambitions — like associate membership of the customs union — will never actually be achieved. Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin
“A hardline approach to Brexit may hold the Conservative party together, but it could rip Britain apart. And if we continue on this path – towards a hard Brexit – we risk having to explain to future generations why we knowingly put their economy, their prosperity and their place on the world stage in such peril.” Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London
Over-compensating like a balding banker in a Lamborghini Diablo. Reality is they are absolutely terrified of the worst case scenario. pic.twitter.com/73CHjuvIjf
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