After the end of World War 1, as countries across the globe took stock of the calamity that had befallen them, nation after nation made a commitment to honour the dream that so many serving soldiers, sailors and airmen had given their lives for.
As the reasons for the conflict became clearer to ordinary people the phrase ‘Lest we forget’ came to signify not only the millions of lives cut short but also the motivations and political ambitions of those who brought them to war in the first place. Nationalistic pride, a belief in our own mythical, almost mystical superiority and contempt for ‘Johnny foreigner’ bred an arrogance that was at once both isolationist and entitled.
Coupled with the unbridled political ambition of a few key players both in and out of government, the stage was (is) set for a conflict of gargantuan, of epic proportions.
Such was the situation in the run up to August 1914.
This is Jim Grace. Well actually it’s his Twitter account, @Mac_Puck and if you’re a Brexiteer his stuff will be right up your street. A proper Godsend.
Have a look at this ‘mega thread’ and you’ll be able to name those laws that we pesky Remoaners (now rejoiners) keep asking you about. The link is in the description but here are a few highlights…
Jim found that we objected to (and were outvoted on) only 72 pieces of EU legislation out of around 35,000 laws passed.
You can follow the ‘Mega thread’ link below to see what those laws were about but here are those highlights.
We voted against consumer protection and food safety… 17 times!
We voted against laws to combat cybercrime
We voted against laws ensuring workers’ rights and protection in the workplace
We voted against Laws opposing tax avoidance, including stopping people like Farage and Rees-Mogg using tax-Havens (to name but 2)
We even voted against legislation to maintain fish stocks and so protect our fishing industry – and we all know how well we’ve done handling that on our own, don’t we?
Fortunately for you, Jim Grace has linked to every piece of legislation so you can look up all those details you don’t usually have available for the next time you’re asked about it – unless, of course, having followed the links you’d prefer to keep your head buried firmly in the sand and pretend you still can’t think of any.
Then there are the European judgements against us. Jim found 72 of those for things like failing to prevent cybercrime, failure to protect womens’ rights in the workplace and elsewhere and failing to protect us from pollution.
But don’t take my word for it – follow the link below and see the details for yourself.
It’s no wonder that so many people who voted Brexit now openly regret it or just keep their mouths shut as the reality hits, is it?
Brace for mega thread on "ALL THEM RULES INNIT"
There is a type of of brexiter who is motivated not by xenophobia, or Empire nostalgia, or buccaneering trade fantasies, but instead by "all them EU rules". Sadly they can never name a single one. So I have done some research…
Apparently Boris has buggered about a bit with Priti Patel’s treatment of Johnny Foreigner and graciously allowed the ungrateful little bastards back on to Britain’s glorious soil… for a strictly limited period of time.
This is to allow them to serve us, their natural masters, by driving our stuff about. They get to bask in the glory of Britain’s roads, much less congested now that fuel is so scarce and we, their overlords, get to have the Christmas we deserve. Good on yer, Boris.
But just in case those ungrateful Europeans don’t understand the honour they’ve so graciously been given. In case they prefer to work on the continent with better pay and permanent contracts. In case they misunderstand the privilege of being allowed to drive on the left side of the road, to use verges for toilets and to spend hours getting in and out of Kent. Just in case they don’t get it, I’ve written to a mate of mine in Dover. I’ve asked him to execute a sort of plan B for the festive season.
Boris got his deal, the economy is tanking (which is bad news for everyone except Boris, Rees-Mogg, Farage and their disaster capitalist mates). The UK faces major shortages and price rises on imported goods and other goods like medicines.
The financial sector is legging it to Europe, as are several of our remaining manufacturers but at least, for once, we really are in it together… including Tory and Brexit voters, most of whom lack the means to profit from Brexit like Aaron Banks will.
Hopefully, one day we will return.
So let’s face facts, accept the disaster we’re stuck with and pull together to maintain our community. The lesson of history predicts major social division and unrest anytime from mid-January onward. Fuelled by the likes of Farage and co who will be desperate to blame others for their own actions, it’ll be easy for us to collapse into rioting and mutual hatred not seen in UK since the civil wars of the seventeenth century. And (almost) nobody voted for that!
let’s stick together and come through this disastrous mess as a nation united by adversity, not a people destroyed by self-inflicted misery and the resentment it so often brings in its wake.
We’ll be back just as soon as people see what they voted for. Once they realise that the Gov’t objection to the ‘level playing field’ and the European Court of Justice was that they protected our rights. Once we lose working peoples’ rights and Brits come to understand the impact of losing Erasmus and free-movement rights.
It’s very strange that the larger Brexit looms in our lives the more Brexiteers want to distance themselves from it. It’s almost as though they know it’s going to be a disaster and they don’t want to be blamed for the damage Brexit continues to do to our economy, our access to goods and our standing in the world at large.
Four years ago it was all hunky dory.
That was when the Brexiteers were still calling our warnings ‘Fake news’ or ‘project fear’, despite knowing all about Dominic Cummings dirty tricks and Boris’ lies on the side of the bus.
Even last year they still kept up the pretence…
Remember how we held all the cards and the EU would give us a better deal even than its own members were getting?
And now they’re even lying about anyone saying there’s an oven ready deal in the first place.
It’s fascinating how these giants of intellectualism, these Eton and Dulwich college educated men of the people, these wealthy gents with their even more wealthy backers who want nothing more than to help out the working man have forgotten almost everything they once said about Canada deals, Norway deals, Sweden deals and even Australian deals (that last one is really just no deal, by the way).
Even my own MP, former UKIP candidate and now tory MP, Mark Jenkinson seems desperate to move away from his hardline, no deal past.
Despite joining the ERG, the tory backbench extreme Brexit pressure group just 5 days after being elected he now claims that he has never been a member. The chairman of the ERG, Steve Baker actually lists Jenky in the roll of new members in the press. Jenky’s own twitter feed displayed a picture of his at the ERG meeting on 17th December 2019. A picture that appeared in the press shortly after.
Well… seeing is believing, Jenky.
So why Are you trying to distance yourself from the hardline, no deal Brexit you always wished for? Is it because you’re finally beginning to understand the dire consequences that we Remainers have been warning you about for years? Is it because you finally realise the damage you’ve already done to our economy and to the electorate in one of the country’s hardest hit areas by voting for this awful nonsense?
Are you that desperate to make someone else take the blame that you’re walking away from your success so quickly now that you’re getting what you wanted?
And remember, Jenky… and all the rest of you sleazy tories who voted to impoverish your fellows just so you could make a quick profit. This really is what you’ve worked so hard for and we will not forget it.
Welcome to the peoples’ democratic, Francophile republic of Kent. Separated from the rest of UK by a 380 mile border, Kent and its coastline will soon be annexed by France, rejoin THE EU and the customs union and make its GDP primarily from lorry parking fees.
I have long argued that the most valuable thing about European membership is the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). I’ve warned repeatedly that these Tories want to be rid of our human rights protections so they can exploit us further and been accused of scaremongering (latterly ‘project fear’). And yet it’s happening.
This is a PDF of The Convention, a blog series I wrote years ago, long before the referendum was a prospect because even then politicians on the right and far right were complaining about our human rights.
The struggle to retain our human and civil rights will be the next big battle in post-Brexit UK. PLEASE get informed. Download The Convention and see why it’s so important not to let Boris and his cynical mates take our rights from us.
Your country has just left the European Union, after 47 years of life together.
It is the result of the sovereign decision the British people expressed in the referendum of June 2016, a democratic choice France has always respected.
Yet I must also tell you, as an ally and, even more, as a friend and true European, how deeply sad I am at this departure. And I am thinking, today, of the millions of Britons – from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – who still feel deeply attached to the European Union. I am thinking of the hundreds of thousands of French citizens in the UK and British citizens in France who are wondering about their rights and their future: I assure them that we will protect them.
I must tell you, too, that this departure is a shock for Europeans. It is the first time a country has left the European community. The UK was not there when it took its first steps in 1950, but we owe it so much – Winston Churchill’s historic foresight, for a start. And since 1973, while our European relationships may at times have been turbulent, the UK has been a central player in the European project – particularly in building the single market –, a more influential player than the British have often themselves imagined.
This departure has to be a shock, because there is nothing trivial about it. We must understand the reasons for it and learn lessons from it. The rejection of a Europe which political leaders, in the UK and elsewhere, have too often blamed for all evils, to avoid having to deal with their own failures – that’s one reason. Another is, let’s acknowledge this, the consequence of a Europe seen as not effective enough, not protective enough, distant from the realities of daily life.
I am convinced therefore that Europe needs new momentum, in a world where the need for control, security and protection is stronger than ever. Perhaps you’ll tell me it is no longer your problem? I do not believe that for a minute, because the UK has no interest in a weak European Union. I fight every day, and will continue to do so, for this united, sovereign and democratic Europe, whose strength will make our continent strong.
In this respect, I know the feeling – however you voted in 2016 – that France was “tough” from the start of the Brexit negotiation. I wanted to defend the existential principles of the way the European Union functions: compliance with our rules within the single market, European unity, and stability in Ireland. These are not bureaucratic inflexibilities but the very foundations of the European edifice. But never has France or the French people – or, I think it is fair to say, any European people – been driven by a desire for revenge or punishment.
It is in this spirit of mutual respect and commitment to the European Union and with such powerful ties between our two countries that we must look to the future and build our new relationship.
The British government wishes to move swiftly forward; we are ready for this. It is in our common interest to define as close and deep a partnership as possible in defence and security, and in police, judicial, environmental, scientific and cultural cooperation. At the same time let me be honest, as I have always been: ease of access to the European market will depend on the degree to which the European Union’s rules are accepted, because we cannot allow any harmful competition to develop between us.
More directly, I would like to begin a new chapter between our two countries, based on the strength of our unrivalled ties. This year we will celebrate the 80th anniversary of General de Gaulle’s 18 June Appeal: the French know what they owe the British, who allowed our Republic to live. I am coming to London in June to award the city the Légion d’Honneur, in tribute to the immense courage of a whole country and people. Ten years on from the Lancaster House Agreement, we must deepen our defence, security and intelligence cooperation. I would also like Prime Minister Boris Johnson and I to draw on history to boldly build new, ambitious projects, as when the Channel Tunnel finally – physically – connected our two countries.
Dear British friends, you are leaving the European Union but you are not leaving Europe. Nor are you becoming detached from France or the friendship of its people. The Channel has never managed to separate our destinies; Brexit will not do so, either.
At 11.00 p.m. last night we did not say “goodbye”, but an early “good morning”.
Back on December 22nd I blogged about the Tory plan to abandon LONE children left alone in Europe whose families are settled in UK. Yesterday every single Tory MP (including my own ‘excuse for a human being’ MP, Mark Jenkinson) voted to amend the European withdrawal bill to that effect.
This isn’t just oversight – they’re actively removing the relevant clause from Boris’ increasingly changing ‘oven ready’ deal.
If you ever doubted that the UK has elected a truly monstrous government just imagine the plight of a small child alone, abandoned and at risk this winter. Imagine your own children in such a situation. Imagine the risk, the fear, the lack of nurturing as they face the elements, unfed and uncared for in a strange land.
Such pathetic, evil, selfish bastards! How can they look ordinary, decent people in the eye? They should hang their heads in shame.
There’s a reason why the Tories are known as ‘The nasty party‘. It’s because they are!
7/1/2020: Despite reassurances that European citizens living in the UK will be treated fairly the conservative government used its majority to refuse to honour that guarantee. They also ensured that any such citizens will be denied the right of appeal. This from the BBC website…
Left eye view 