Tag Archive for: EU

The Wonders of Brexit

The wonders of Brexit coming to a town near you.

After Brexit the United Kingdom is going to be amazing – every morning I’m going to wake up in my Union Jack jimmy-jams to the sound of a squadron of Spitfires racing overhead and leaving a trail of hot buttered crumpets behind them.

I’ll run to the corner shop past all the happy Scottish and English children who are laughing and squealing with excitement and delight as they make a beautiful statue of the Queen out of happy wriggling British Bulldog puppies – with two Corgis for her eyebrows!

Bunting flutters everywhere in the ‘gin clear’ blue sunny sky and the man from the betting shop steps into the street – “guess what! England just won the World Cup & The Ashes & The Queens’s horse the Grand National and here’s the best bit – Boris Johnson put a bet on it for everyone! we’re all MILLIONAIRES!!! hip hip Hurray! “

The Red Arrows and Lancaster bombers fly overhead dropping ‘fish and chips’ on tiny fluffy white parachutes along with lashings of ginger beer to the appreciative gathered crowds below; as I walk into the corner shop to get my morning paper full of good British news “Good morning, how much please?” I say to Mr. Mohammad’s son, “one penny Sir, everything in the whole shop now costs just one penny!” he laughs, “leave it on the counter, I’m off back to Pakistan – we all are!”

Gosh, he’s right! outside in the streets jolly old Nigel Farage is leading a huge crowd of happy smiley Johnny foreigners – Turks, Poles, Romanians, Syrians – there’s even a few English and Scottish people with heavy suntans mixed up in there! Nigel’s playing ‘Rule Britannia’ on a long pipe, rather like the pipe that takes the gas into your oven, and they’re all following and smiling and talking foreign, bless them!

Just then our exalted PM, Boris Johnson flies overhead in a Concorde made of Bank of England gold, powered by Scottish oil – “don’t worry!” he laughs “I’ve cut out all the bits the French, Spanish and Germans made!” and with that he crashes into the ground at 1200 mile/h.


Courtesy Dave Lewis from a post on our Facebook group.

One Year On

A year ago just after the depressing news of Johnson’s win I was scrolling through Facebook when i came across a meme that said the campaign to rejoin the EU starts now.

I thought yes why not? Why should we just roll over and accept what has just happened? And why shouldn’t we start to campaign to rejoin now?

So, I started a little Facebook group expecting to end up with around 80 to 100 members and here we are a year later with around 21,500 members in this group alone…

Initially we expanded very quickly and started developing ideas for our campaign. For example, we came up with the idea for our #IAmEuropean campaign for the 2021 census, we started planning regional social meet ups, and alwo some form of pro EU summer festival.

But as we moved into February and March, far more pressing concerns about covid brought most of our plans to a grinding halt, and it is fair to say it has been a difficult and often frustrating year where many of our ideas have had to be put on the back burner.

However, over the last year we have achieved much and have spent a lot of time developing our infrastructure to the point where we now have a variety of different sub groups and pages on Facebook, various twitter and Instagram accounts and a website. We have built a presence and we are starting to influence.

We have developed our four-point plan to move towards our ultimate goal of rejoining the EU and are working towards each one. These four points are:

  1. To challenge the legitimacy of Brexit
  2. To promote the benefits of EU membership.
  3. To place rejoining the EU onto the agenda of the main political parties
  4. To develop, grow and maintain our Rejoin Movement and our European identity

For many people what is going on at present is very difficult with the shadow of no deal hanging over us and our country in just a few short days time, but we have to keep our hope and our belief that we will right this wrong, and that the UK will retake its rightful place at the heart of the EU.

We face a difficult journey and, for that journey to be successful, we need to move on from the events of the past, including the mistakes. What has happened has happened and we cannot change the past. Fighting amongst ourselves will not solve anything, and neither will trying to place blame onto one group of people or another. Both must stop and stop now.

We need to recognise that we are a diverse movement that has support from all sections of the UK population and amongst British people who live in other countries – all ages, all ethnicities, all religions, all geographic regions, and all political views etc etc support our goals, and we need to bridge those divides and work together to achieve our goals if we are to succeed.

Whatever does happen on the 31st December, we cannot sink any lower, and we start the journey to rejoining on 1st January.

The time for talking will stop and the time for action will begin and each and everyone of us needs to ask ourselves what we can do to help because there is a lot that needs doing.

Thank you for being part of this journey over the last 12 months. Covid still hangs over us, but as the threat recedes due to the wonderful efforts of our NHS and the Scientific community, hopefully the next 12 months will be a little easier for us than the last, and we will be able to advance our cause.

I hope you will join me in thanking the team of volunteers that runs our organisation, including the people that run this group. At times it has been a lot of hard work and it has not always been an easy or straightforward task.

We will prevail. Here’s to the next 12 months…

Don’t Legitimise Lies and Law Breaking

Leavers often accuse Remainers of being undemocratic as we have started to campaign for Rejoining the EU. One of the counter arguments to that accusation and perhaps the one that I most often hear is that democracy is an ongoing process and we have every right to campaign to Rejoin.


Whilst I agree with this argument, there is a serious flaw in using that argument, which is why I rarely, if ever, use it myself – It gives democratic legitimacy to the 2016 result.


The 2016 referendum was anything but democratic, indeed a few weeks ago I wrote a substantial response to the Governments rejection of our petition for a public inquiry into the referendum detailing exactly why Brexit has no legitimacy, but why was the vote in 2016 itself not democratic?


The story starts with Cambridge Analytica who stole data from Facebook which resulted in the Information Commissioner’s Office fining Facebook half a million pounds – the maximum amount allowed in pre GDPR days.


This data was then used by the Leave Campaign to psychologically manipulate voters and target them with misleading and false advertisements. The deceit and dishonesty of the Leave Campaign is perhaps best summarised by Professor Michael Dougan who described the Leave Campaign as “dishonesty on an industrial scale” and “one of the most dishonest campaigns this country has ever seen”.


In addition to this dishonesty and the illegal actions of Cambridge Analytica, the Leave Campaign itself broke the law. The Leave Campaign was fined £50,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for sending millions of text messages without consent and £120,000 for other offences relating to unlawful use of data. The Leave Campaign was also fined £61,000 by the Electoral Commission for breaching electoral law.


Democracy does not include wholescale deceit and dishonesty designed to mislead people into voting in a particular way or driving a coach and horses through both electoral law and data protection laws as the Leave Campaign has done.


We need to stop the use of any argument that legitimises the 2016 result.


It was not legitimate. It was not democratic.


Brexit is not legitimate. Brexit is not democratic.

Something Fishy

Did you know that in 2017 the UK fishing fleet made around 20% of its total catch from non-UK waters?

According to official figures, out of the seven other EU Member States’ waters that the UK landed fish from the most valuable for the UK fleet were (avg. 2012 – 2016):

Ireland (65,000 tonnes, £66 million)
France (14,000 tonnes, £17 million)
Denmark (7,000 tonnes, £10 million)
The most valuable fish caught by UK vessels in other EU member state waters were: mackerel, plaice and monks/anglers.

Sourced from Marine Developments Government Blog courtesy of Phil Dunn and Clifford Capel

EU Standards

Lord Andrew Adonis – European Movement
Tell Michael Gove that downgrading on EU standards is unacceptable

The clock is ticking, and the question on everyone’s mind is will there be a Deal or No Deal?

Boris Johnson’s Government claimed that this deal was “oven-ready” but with little over a month left before we crash out of the EU the worst-case scenario of a No Deal is still not off the table. We are continuing to stand up to No Deal, because we know that it is the worst possible outcome for this country.

But we don’t just want any deal. We are demanding a good deal. We are preparing to respond to the possibility that Boris Johnson’s government achieves the hard Brexit deal they are aiming for. Such a deal would:

  • Damage our NHS and cost lives by restricting access to vital medical supplies.
  • Damage our economy by adding huge costs to businesses and costing jobs across the UK.
  • Damage our environment by firing the starting gun on a race to the bottom.
  • Damage proud British food standards and threaten our farmers’ livelihoods.

We will not know the true costs of any Brexit deal until it is reached and published. But we will stand up to any deal that threatens the rights, standards, and prosperity we have enjoyed in the EU. Anything less than what we had as part of the EU will be unacceptable.

In March 2019, Cabinet Secretary Michael Gove said that “we didn’t vote to leave without a deal.” Today, we want to remind government ministers that nobody voted for a worse deal than we had in the EU. And how better to do that than by reminding Michael Gove of what he said just last year?

Remain turned up to a Knife Fight with a Spoon

For many people my age I suspect that one of the most defining events of our early adult lives was the Miner’s Strike which still colours the political views of many of those involved over three decades later, and caused a significant divide in the country in much the same way that the 2016 EU membership referendum has done.


Looking behind the dramatic TV pictures and stripping away the rhetoric and spin that surrounded the strike, what we essentially witnessed in 1984 and 1985 was a battle between two opposing political views on how an industry, specifically the coal industry, should be run.


On one side you had Scargill and the Labour movement arguing in favour of nationalised industries to provide employment before profit, and on the other side, Thatcher and the Tories arguing in favour of privately industry driven by profit.


Whatever your position on that argument, it was essentially an opinion on what was best, either nationalised industry providing jobs or private industry providing profits, and with a little thought, the opposing point of view could be easily recognised and understood, even if you did not agree with it.


Contrast that with the situation in 2016 and you immediately see the difference.


In the words of Professor Michael Dougan, the Leave Campaign of 2016 was “dishonesty on an industrial scale”. In other words, it wasn’t about a difference in opinion as in the Miner’s Strike, it was about what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what was a lie.


The Leave Campaign very deliberately set out to deceive the British electorate.


The Remain Campaign struggled to cope with countering those lies and as a consequence largely failed in its attempts to get its own message across. The leaders of Remain had no answer to the disingenuous conduct of the Leave Campaign. Indeed, not only did the Leave Campaign lie on an industrial scale, we subsequently found out that they drove the proverbial coach and horses through both electoral law and data protection laws in pursuit of their goals. It was this failure by the Remain leadership to adequately respond to the tactics of the Leave Campaign that led to Peter Mandelson coining the phrase “Remain took a spoon to a knife fight.’


Sadly, many in the Remain movement, or Rejoin as it has now become, even now often fail to recognise that the Leave Campaign does not care about rules or even democracy itself, and that they will go to any lengths to achieve their goals.


This is why it is so important to tackle misleading or groundless statements about the EU made by politicians such as Justin Tomlinson MP back in September when he claimed that the EU were trying to stop the supply of food to Northern Ireland and to break up the UK.


I do not believe there is any substance to those claims which is why I challenged Mr Tomlinson to produce evidence. He has not done so and that failure can only point to one conclusion.


If we are to prevail, we need to recognise that leavers do not care about rules, laws, or even democracy, and that they will and continue to go to any lengths to achieve their goals. Above all we need to stand up to people who make false claims about the EU and call them out for what they are.


We need to call them out as liars!

Why we need to push Labour on Rejoin now

There has been a lot of debate in recent months about why Starmer does not come out in favour of rejoin with perhaps the most common arguments being that he needs to bide his time or he is playing a clever game.

Thats not an argument that has any evidence to support it and this article highlights the dangers of those arguments – Labour Leavers are still active and are trying to either remove the issue of Rejoin from the agenda of the Labour Party or move Labour policy into opposition to EU membership.

That is something that we must counter if we are ever to Rejoin.

Articles such as this confirm that we are correct in setting one of our strategic goals as attempting to place Rejoin onto the agenda of the Labour Party.

This article also confirms that we need to be doing so now.


https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/keir-starmer-should-apologise-to-labour-voters-6316320?fbclid=IwAR0UrrkUFu2rb8chkHnhfL5YqIpU-pgDxk0A3pDhX1Kru5LbV_Z3RcZA9B0

Campaign to Rejoin and Political Parties

A few days ago I outlined a high level strategy as a way forward for the Rejoin movement.

Given the current news coverage and speculation concerning the views of Starmer and Davey on rejoining the EU, I thought it appropriate to return to the subject and expand a little on point three of that high level strategy, which was for those of us who are members of political parties to promote Rejoin within those parties and other issues that lay the ground for that.

The news concerning Starmer and Davey really does highlight the need for this, particularly against the background of increasing calls for a single issue Rejoin party to be established that I have seen in the last few days.

This is an issue that our team have been discussing since last December when we first set this group up and started to develop the Campaign to Rejoin. Initially, after consulting with members, we agreed that it would be best to wait and see what happens with the new leadership and use the intervening time to investigate establishing a new political party.

Establishing a new political party in itself is not particularly difficult or expensive. There are few requirements such a leader has to be nominated and accounts have to be kept to a certain standard and submitted every year (which is ultimately the reason why Furhage set up the Brexshit party as a limited company), but perhaps the most onerous requirement is that the party must convince the electoral commission that it intends to participate in elections – and that’s where the problems and indeed costs, start.

Participating in elections means costs and also a need to adhere to various rules and laws and therefore requires a certain level of funding and expertise, which in turn means more costs.

There are many arguments in favour and against establishing a new single-issue party, not least this need for funding and costs, with perhaps the most common one being the potential for splitting the anti-Johnson and pro EU vote (I’ll explain why I say anti Johnson rather than anti Tory a little later).

Given those arguments and the costs etc. associated with establishing a new party, together with the fact that the next general election is probably around 4 years away, a more pragmatic approach would be to push for Rejoin to be placed onto the agenda of all political parties that have a realistic chance of having MPs elected at the next general election, along with other policies that would help us in our efforts to rejoin, specifically

  1. An enquiry into the conduct of the Leave Campaign and the Brexit related activities of the May and Johnson Governments
  2. Stronger regulation of the press and other media to ensure accurate reporting and the prevention on fake news and a requirement for all news organisations to adopt a politically neutral stance during elections referendum campaigns.
  3. Regulation of advertising by political parties to stop the false advertising such as that undertaken by the leave campaign in 2016 and the Tory party last December.

In addition to these issues there is also the question of changes to the electoral system, however given the cross-party nature of the Remain now Rejoin movement, we need to be very careful to retain cross party neutrality or we could lose support. Whilst I personally am in favour of electoral reform, I am cautious about pushing for it as a campaign goal as it may prove controversial given our need tombs cross party. This is something that we need to discuss as a movement.

As a Campaign we therefore need to be pushing for these issues to be on the agenda of all political parties, including putting forward motions for party conferences.

Furthermore, we need to set the agenda, not follow the agenda of others in the hope that they might just, if we support them, maybe, possibly agree to another referendum.

Another reason to push for Rejoin to be on the agenda of the political parties is that it is a certainty that groups like Labour Leave will be doing their best to keep it off and to place staying out onto the agenda.

To help achieve this we have therefore set up sub groups for the Labour party, the Lib Dems and the Greens for members of those parties, with the aim of promoting and pushing for our cause within those parties. This should include putting forward motions to party conferences.

If you a member of one of those parties please do join the relevant sub-group. You can find details within the group announcements and I will place links to them in the comments.

If you are a supporter of one of those parties, but not a member I would encourage you not only to join the relevant sub-group but also to join the party itself to help advance our cause.

Obviously, there are other pro EU political parties that have the potential to have seats in the House of Commons after the next GE such as the SNP, Plaid, the SDLP and the Alliance. If you are a member or supporter of those parties and would like to help us establishing groups for those parties please get in touch.

Which brings me on to a difficult subject, but one that really does need addressing. Pro EU Tories.

Like it or not it is a fact that 35% of those who voted Remain in 2016 voted Tory in the 2015 General Election. Whilst that figure has fallen quite considerably since, 19% of remain voters in 2016 voted for the Tory party last December. This is why I referred to the anti-Johnson vote earlier rather than the anti-Tory vote.

In other words, 1 in 5 Remainers are Tories. The fact is if we are ever going to retake our place in the EU we need their votes.

We have therefore helped establish a Conservative Rejoin group to encourage pro EU Tories. It is very small currently, but If we are to be successful, we need to help that group grow and get their message out to other pro EU Tories. I will post a link to that group in the comments as well. As much as you may disagree and dislike the Tories, please respect the fact that they are trying to help us achieve our goals. Indeed, they share our main goal of regaining our rightful place in the EU.

When it comes to a new political party, there are two scenarios where I can see a need to establish one, and the first of these relates to pro EU Tories, many of whom may well feel politically homeless at present. A new party would provide a home for them.

The other scenario is where we simply cannot get our objectives onto the agenda of the political parties, in which case we may well have no choice.

So, particularly if you are one of those people who argue that a new party will split the pro EU vote, please help us get our agenda onto the agenda of the political parties!

Some thoughts on a way forward for the Rejoin movement

Some thoughts about the way forward for Rejoin.
There is some disagreement amongst Rejoin supporters about the timing of a campaign with many arguing now is not the time to campaign as Brexit supporters need to see the damage Brexit does. I disagree this for a number of reasons:

  1. This is essentially a rehash of what leavers called project fear. They will blame anyone and everyone other than themselves for the adverse consequences of Brexit and if they are backed into a corner they will say it is all worth it
  2. Over the last 5 years together we have built an amazing pro EU movement, the largest in the EU. We must not let this die. Doing nothing will mean that this movement will wither and die.
  3. There is much we can do now in terms of building and organising, and also laying the ground for future battles on our terms, without actually overtly campaigning for Rejoin.
  4. If I were writing a Leave Strategy for the next few years, Pushing the idea that it is too early for the Rejoin Campaign to start would be a key part of my strategy. Waiting around is playing right into the Leave Campaign’s hands. In fact its quite noticeable that non of the party leaders have said anything like now is not the time.
    So what should we do? Broadly I believe we should follow four strands of action.
  5. Challenge the legitimacy of the decision by the current Government to take out of the EU. Remain activists know many of the reasons why, but do the rest of the Electorate? I would argue they do not and we need to raise awareness of this
  6. Promote the benefits of EU membership. Why? Because it’s never really been done in a planned systematic way. As remain we spent far too much time focussing on the risks of leaving and countering the lies told by the leave campaign
  7. Those of us who are members of political parties need to promote Rejoin within those parties and other issues that help us lay the ground for that such as proper regulation of the media
  8. Develop, grow and maintain our Rejoin Movement and our European identity. We had big plans in this area, but sadly we had to curtail much due to Covid, but there is still much we can do online.

I will cover each issue in more detail in future posts. I welcome your thoughts and constructive criticism on these broad outline of a strategy

FACES TURN RED OVER NEW PASSPORTS THAT AREN’T BLUE by Jon Danzig

→ “It’s not blue, it’s black!” “Brexit has been for nothing!”

FACES TURN RED OVER NEW PASSPORTS THAT AREN’T BLUE

Consternation reported by the Tory house journal today (The Telegraph) over the disappointment of Brexiters that the new British passport isn’t as they expected.

A new, blue British passport was promised on the back of Brexit.

Back to ‘the good old days’ when our passports were the proper true-blue hue, when we had an Empire, half the world was painted pink and we ruled the world.

Glory days! It was the promise of Brexit! It’s what we’ve been waiting for!

The Torygraph reported:

‘Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the Commons, once described the return of the blue passport as the “cherry on the icing” of Brexit…

‘Home Secretary Priti Patel said adopting the design would mean passports were “once again entwined with our national identity”…’

But now the long-awaited blue passports are finally in the hands of the public, what’s the reaction?

Brexiters are livid!

“I just received my new passport and it’s not blue…it’s black!” said one Twitter user about a photo of his new passport, before adding that “Brexit has been for nothing!”

“It’s completely the wrong colour,” confirmed another Instagram user.

“It is definitely black and not even remotely blue,” said another on social media, again alongside a damning photo of the blue document looking very close to black.

“What a disappointment,” said one Twitter user, who expressed that they had been looking forward to receiving the blue passport.

“It arrived today after two months and it’s not blue it’s black, and the cover is so thin it won’t last ten years.”

“The passport is black (not even blue?!), really poor quality, flimsy and thin, and the edges are peeling,” said Twitter user Ashley Gorman, with a close-up shot of the frayed edges of her document.

Oh dear, if Brexiters think it’s all been “for nothing” because they didn’t get the passport colour they wanted, expect more Brexit disappointments on the horizon.

Only a few complaints not to do with the colour of the new passports.

(Maybe those complaints will start next year when we’ll be queuing in the non-EU passport sections of airports, or have to apply for a visa to holiday or do business in an EU country).

“A blue passport with nowhere to go and no planes to fly us there,” was one of the Tweets on the official Twitter channel for GOV.UK.

“The fundamental truth is: having a blue passport won’t automatically give you access to Greece,” added another.

Should I break the news now or later?

Let’s do it now… get it over with.

We, er, well, how can I put this?

We didn’t have to leave the EU to change the colour of our passport.

We could have had any passport colour we wanted whilst being an EU member.

So, yes, sorry, it’s now confirmed for sure. “Brexit has been for nothing!”

▪ Commentary and graphic by Jon Danzig

▪ Telegraph report (paywall): telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/britons-react-new-blue-passports/http://telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/britons-react-new-blue-passports/