Brexit Has Failed

Way back in 2019 I wrote a (slightly melodramatic) blog post - All Hearts On Sleeves - where I complained about the dishonesty and word-twisting of Remainers. How they would constantly tie poor Brexiteers in knots of language, and reframe the entire conversation. The classic was, "If only Brexiteers would tell us what type of Brexit they want!"

That one was so ironic because one of the biggest problems with the EU was that Europhiles would never outline what their own final vision of the EU looked like. Was it full EU super-state integration? Was it the status quo as things stood in the moment, and no more? Was it something in between?

We never got a straight answer ..and we still haven't. Even as they wave their EU flags and demand that we go back they never quite say. European EU supporters, such as Guy Verhofstadt, will outline their dreams (in his case it is very much an EU super-state), but British Remainers will never give an answer. I don't think a single prominent British Remainer has ever came out and just said, "Yes, I want an EU super-state." Or, alternately, "Here are my redlines on EU integration, I'll cross to your side of the aisle if they're ever breached." The question - which is a very, very important one - is just ignored.

Brexiteers on the other hand generally just wanted to fully leave the EU. It was a fairly clear position. Yes, of course, leaving was never going to be easy, and achieving a good economic relationship with the EU post-Brexit was going to be tricky, but on issues of sovereignty and governance it was pretty clear what was wanted. (Plus, even on the economics plenty of prominent Brexiteers simply said openly "WTO if necessary.")

All this was cleverly flipped around however, and we endlessly got the cry, "If only Brexiteers would tell us what relationship with Europe they want!"

There were countless other examples of this type of blatant reframing, many of which I highlighted in the article.

Brexit Has Failed

Anyway, I've been reminded of that recently by the latest example. In the last few weeks, Nigel Farage has "admitted" that Brexit has failed. Of course, he didn't actually do that. What he was doing was acknowledging the poor state of things in the country, whilst simultaneously making the point that the Brexit he and others had wanted hadn't been implemented. That doesn't stop the Remainers running with the quote though. So, once again we find ourselves living within a narrative where reality has been completely reframed.

Led By Donkeys' proposed billboard campaign

(Why they need to spend £81k putting it on billboards when

the whole media is repeating it is anyone's guess)

Let's fix all this by reminding people of the actual reality, complete with bullet points:

• June 2016: People voted to leave the EU.
• 2016 - 2019: Three solid years of politicians trying to block that from happening.
• December 2019: Boris wins a landslide to deliver Brexit.
• New Year 2019: ..meanwhile somewhere in China.
• January 2020: Britain leaves the EU (and enters the transition period).
• Feb/March 2020: Covid hysteria begins. Followed by two full years of intermittent lockdowns, maskings and the Magic Money Tree.
• (Note: at some point during this time Boris had some birthday cake - very important.)
• December 2020: Transition period ends - EU-UK trade agreement signed.
• May 2021: Trade agreement formally comes into force.
• Feb 2022: Russia invades Ukraine; leading to sanctions, economic turmoil and an energy crisis.
• May 2023: I sit here writing an article about how "Brexit has failed."

It's pretty impressive when you see it all written down like that, though a single line can't quite sum up the sheer massiveness of the 2020 - 2022 Covid period.

I shouldn't really need to state much more to illustrate how disingenuous it is when Remainers blame all our current woes on Brexit. Especially when they tended to be especially vocal when it came to demanding lockdowns. It was literally just a few short years ago that they were stating the economy could go to hell if it "saved just one life." If you even mentioned the word inflation back then you were a heartless granny-killer.

Now, as we sit here in May 2023, they've completely disowned any personal or political responsibility for those costs, and will literally blame the inflation and the cost of living crisis almost entirely on Brexit. As if the Covid hysteria simply never happened.

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Oh, and if you doubt the insincerity, just look at the bullet points on the Crowdfunder page.

Wading Through Fiction.

Well, I haven't posted on here since November 2022, and I stopped posting regularly way back in Sept '22. Back then I said I was stopping the frequent posting to concentrate on my work of fiction. The news on that is both good and bad. On the one hand I have got a lot done, but on the other it's at a rate far slower than I would've hoped. I'm over half way through writing the second (and final) book now. At current rate it should take another two to three months to get it done.

Once that's done I can put it on the back-burner. I'll still need to do 2nd, 3rd and 4th drafts, etc. So if it ever sees the light of day in public it will be a good while from now. I'm literally thinking in years rather than months. 2025/26 will probably be the ballpark for both books. No rush. It's kind of a work of passion, so the main thing is getting it out of my system and down in writing.

Anyway, it's reached the point where I feel so exhausted by it I feel it would be good to start posting here again just to freshen myself up.

Since last time..

The last time I posted a daily journal style post it was when Liz Truss was prime minister and the Queen had just died. I said at the time "I think I've covered the main things..", but obviously, since then, there's been a fair bit of drama. We're currently under the Rishi regime, and it seems we're moving back towards the EU. If not outright, then through entanglements with the European Defence Union and so forth. Things under Sunak look exactly how I expected they would be under Sunak - though not quite the worst case scenario version.

Immigration

Today it was announced that net inward migration into the country was 606,000. Quite a big number. It's getting very hard to take it all seriously now. You'd think that with numbers so huge even people on the other side of the divide would be able to say, "Yes, these numbers are large, I do understand why people have concerns." However, they don't seem capable of doing this. So they argue exactly as they would've done back when the numbers were 60,600. It's pretty incredible to watch.

I do worry that in this age of mass information it's become too easy for people to have worldviews that are detached from reality. I see it on both the left and right. People on the right watch videos of interracial crime all day on social media, so think everyone's kung-fu fighting constantly - when the reality is it's not that bad. The left watch stuff about racism all day, so genuinely believe that the country's full to the brim with racists.

Though social cohesion is a big worry going forward the most immediate problem is houses and services. You have to be pretty optimistic to think the government will provide housing for an extra 600,000 people every twelve months. So inevitably we'll get more homelessness, more people falling into debt, and more people living in very crowded or substandard accommodation.