As the poster notes, you may not have seen this, because it was targeted at the sick, elderly and vulnerable. https://twitter.com/BrexitBin/status/1265187171708829696
Direct marketing is a powerful tool. I have worked in the industry and analysed results so I know this as an absolute fact. People will claim that they weren't influenced by "silly videos on Facebook" and they probably genuinely believe that they weren't. But they are wrong because such personalised and direct messages work and that's why advertisers and propagandists use such methods.
If propaganda didn't work, no one would use it. People are prone to believing things that reinforce their pre-existing biases (I'm sure every single one of us has been taken in like this multiple times), and it's far easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they've been fooled. Couple this with the ease with which social media allows data to be collected (and info targeted to specific people as a result) and you've got a recipe of dystopia. Intellectually speaking, we're a very lazy species when it comes down to it.
Not the brexit I voted for part 679: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/10/brexit-next-boss-foreign-workers-uk-lord-wolfson
And yet more totally unsurprising 'news': https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1590643867157954560
Brexit triumphs continue as it is revealed the UK economy shrank in the last quarter, while the Eurozone and US grew. Compared to the pre-pandemic level, UK GDP in Q3 2022 was 0.4% lower. This compares with Eurozone GDP being 2.1% higher than its pre-pandemic level, while US GDP was 4.2% higher. But don’t believe me, it’s all here in this report from the Government. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/
Yet still both the main political parties refuse to even consider applying to join the EU SM. It is an obvious and well needed way of boosting our economy but our politicians refuse to lead and explain this to the nation. They prefer to ignore the very large elephant in the room because it's easier.
Politics is the art of the possible and it’s simply not possible for Labour to offer this right now. It would lose them votes in the areas they need to win. Probably not the Tories either or we’d end up with a Farage/Reform Government.
That's the problem - we're going to have to hit rock bottom economically/socially before any rapprochement with "Yerp" is ever countenanced by our political overlords. But on the plus side - Labour only have to say silent on the issue for around another two years and the Tory civil war starts up in earnest again. The Tory XRW still haven't felt the full effect of the complete ******** over their very short application of their interpretation of neo-liberal economic theory (Truss, Kwarteng and all those looneys in 55 Tufton Street) - the fallout will be fully felt in the Autumn Budget and they will be very scared after seeing how badly Trump's brand of populism 'did' in the US (most notably the 'Woke Wars').
I understand the argument but it just underlines how weak current UK politics is. The case for being in the SM, if not rejoining the EU, is overwhelming now. A good leader would be able to put that case to the nation and persuade those that voted for Brexit, whether it was for less immigration or economic "freedom" (or just about every other promised benefit of Brexit) people are seeing that Brexit has not delivered. Right from the start of the Brexit debate, no one has sold the huge positives of being in the SM. From Cameron to Starmer, the "remainers" have had poor, uninspiring "leadership" when it should be a really easy sell, especially as the damage is becoming more and more apparent and relevant to every day life.
This is not strictly true, as the economic benefits of EU and SM membership were the only weapons in the 'Remain' campaign. So much so that Leave peddled the lie that we would be leaving the EU in some manner that would not harm our unfettered access to the SM (remember 'they' needed 'us 'more than 'we' needed 'them'). Walkin' talkin' pile o'shyte Banks (and Der Färrager) always boasted that they knew they were winning in the final week of the campaign as the 'Remain' camp were still banging on about economic matters not immigration/NHS/Turkey. Starmer was always a very marginal/low profile figure on the opposition front benches, but he had enough political nous to not get involved with any Tory campaign and became leader three years after the Brexit referendum. The EU is not a battle Labour can win now. They literally have to do nothing as, I said previously, the ERG lies (and damage that they've done) are becoming more and more apparent as the days go by.
I think there was a subtle difference. Not being in the SM was sold by the Tory led Remain campaign as being an economic negative rather than being in as a positive. It is far harder to sell a negative than it is to sell a positive. It was then easy for the Leave campaign to portray it as "project fear" scare mongering. The detailed debate about how businesses, especially small businesses, benefitted from unfettered access to the EU was left to the fringes. Also the huge benefits to science, medical research and education was almost absent from discussions. Even the FoM debate was always framed in a "necessary economic evil" way rather than how it benefitted so many Brits overseas, as well as being a positive cultural benefit to the UK (as immigration always has been). May be politically it would be difficult for Labour to adopt a pro SM policy at this time. And may be it will be wise to wait for the economy to be damaged even further before they act. But that is an enormous shame for all those small businesses and individuals whose lives are unnecessarily harder than they need be.
I don’t believe most Brexit voters are headbangers about it. They wanted the vote enacted and could entrench that position if there was a campaign to rejoin too early. But most won’t care too much if a new Government waters Brexit down, particularly if the economy responds and a few benefits are restored. I would expect a Labour Government to negotiate immediately with the EU to restore benefits of the relationship in exchange for us taking some rules. The May deal in essence. Rejoin is a very different programme and until a more positive view of EU membership takes root in England and Wales it isn’t going to happen. Tory collapse on its own won’t be enough for that, because Tory collapse = the Reform Party.
An open secret in Whitehall for ages but now George Eustice has admitted it - the trade deal with Australia was **** and it was Truss' fault for insisting on an arbitrary deadline. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1592208294684557312?s=20&t=aDCQYVJ3WgESoWSrG9yZuw I know someone that worked on it on the UK side and said they were put under incredible pressure to get it concluded and were told to give up several of our red lines. They were working 12 hour days on Australian time (but based in UK) for the last few weeks all so she could try and show off and prepare for a future leadership run. And Defra knew full well that British farmers were getting shafted but were shouted down by Crazy Liz and Johnson.
Top negotiating tactic by Truss. The question is though even while Eustice had his hands tied by collective responsibility at the time, why not speak up during the leadership campaign that put that utter moron in Downing Street? Can expect to see much, much more of stuff being pinned on Truss in the next 2 years.
Suspect he was hoping to be reappointed to the role so didn't want to upset anyone (better to be inside the tent and all that...). Did actually seem to care about his role, at least a lot more than the ludicrous Ranil Jayawardena (he's like a weird Johnson tribute act with his speech and mannerisms) who Truss put in there with a view to more agricultural concessions in future trade deals. Whether Eustice was any good or not is another matter (known in the farming community as George Useless) but at least he had some interest and experience in the sector. When Sunak overlooked him, guess he thought might as well tell it as it was - he did fight hard for British farmers but lost the Cabinet argument to Truss' buccaneering free trade nonsense.
Yeah. I know plenty in the department who are really angry they were forced to cave into essentially every Australian demand because Truss wanted to look good. The issue never advertised during the referendum, is that if you give one country generous terms in one area, pretty much every other country will demand the same. So in one fell swoop, she forced us to sign a quick rubbish deal, and slowed down/ worsened all other ongoing negotiations. The most angering part was Truss’ line in the leadership contest that ‘she got stuff done’. She came in, did terribly in whatever she was meant to do, expensed a whole load of dodgy things and flew half way around the world for Instagram pics at our expense. All while making the country worse. In decades time, I wonder if we’ll find out she’s a genius Russian spy, planted here to cause maximum damage.
Ex Bank of England policy maker Michael Saunders: “Britain’s exit from the European Union is one of the reasons why the UK is now entering a period of austerity. “The UK economy as a whole has been permanently damaged by Brexit,” Saunders said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. “If we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity budget this week. The need for tax rises, spending cuts wouldn’t be there.” But what he hasn’t realised is that we now have blue passports and a fun little Brexit festival.
We got bent over by our former prison colony. Says everything there is to say about the Brexiter's New Clothes.
Rushanara Ali lets the figures speak for themselves. Bear this in mind when today's 'mini budget' is announced today probably announcing more austerity measures (after over a decade of austerity measures): https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1592920524854038528
Meanwhile the lazy French are getting lazier! And they are happy with it! Working less hours, spending more time at leisure, while being more productive. What absolute berks! Thank god for Brexit giving us an incentive to work hard with all that lost GDP! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-n...-even-lazier-study-shows-vast-majority-happy/
You can't put an economic value on FREEDOM, mate. Freedom to plummet down the league table of living standards. It's not as if those in the Remain camp didn't warn that the poorer elements of society would be hardest hit....no, they were only interested in their foreign hols, which nobody other than selfish gammons ever go on, don't you know.
It sort of doesn't matter any more. The Brexit argument won't be settled. The fact is Britain is economically far weaker than it was and Brexit is a huge reason for that and Truss and Kwarteng's idiotic five minute play at Economics For Morons is another huge reason. The Tories and pro-Brexiters will howl that Europe is in worse state but the fact is it isn't and even if it was it doesn't matter to us either way anyway. Vicky Ford MP went on TV and said that the UK has the best performing economy in the G7 when it actually has the worse. She then tried to say that the IMF is forecasting bigger % rises in the next period of time, which may well be true but the inconvenient truth about percentages is that they are a terrible indicator of anything unless you look at the big picture. Britain's economy shrinking today may well enable them to spin the line that we're performing better tomorrow but the facts will be the same no matter what. Inflation is rampant, so everything costs more, wage stagnation has been crippling (funny how the pro-growth lot don't recognise that a strong economy consists of lots of people with spending power who are able to be active economic units), interest rates are rising, the pound is weaker. It's an absolute perfect storm of the worst of all possibilities. But the people who need to be conned will happily be conned, and the rest of us will roll our eyes and hope a few more people see through the enormous con job and vote for almost anyone else but the current governing party next time round. The infantile discussion of the economy is a huge problem. As soon as I hear an irrelevant analogy about tightening belts or cutting our coat according to our cloth or – worst of the lot – comparing the economy of an entire nation to a credit card debt I know instantly that the person speaking is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The theoretical nonsense about the Budget with fictional families – he owns a car, she's got a pension, he drinks beer, she works part-time and rents out a flat – is designed to tell us nothing. It doesn't matter what happens now anyway – we're facing a huge raid on personal and public finances to pay for their ideological nonsense and their erratic incompetence. Tens of billions in tax rises and tens of billions in cuts to public services that should make the country a decent place to live, all in the name of 'tightening our belts' when the vast majority have been tightening their belts for more than 12 years already. Anyone who spins that as the best we can do must have very short horizons indeed.
Reminds me of Michael Caine at the time of the referendum - "better to be a poor master than a rich servant". As if that **** was ever going to be poor. **** him. **** all the ****s that brought us to this. And **** any stupid **** who was conned into voting Leave but still thinks it was the right thing to do. ****s.
Victoria Atkin was all over the radio yesterday spreading her form of 'information' (sic). Unsurprisingly her 'act' didn't transfer well to live TV with a live audience and a journalist armed with 'facts': https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1593339794393907208
She's also wrong about UK inflation being lower than Europe. While *some* countries are higher than the UK, others are not, and as a whole the Eurozone is about 0.5% below the UK. https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/...pe-has-been-worst-hit-and-how-do-they-compare Sourced from the AP, so about as unbiased as you can get as far as news sources go. That is, of course, beside the point. Brexit didn't cause the global inflation; Covid did. What Brexit DID do was enormously damage our economy and slow growth dramatically. Pivoting to inflation is enormously disingenuous.
