Extract from 'My Ten Point West Midlands Plan' from December 2019

Dear Andy Street and all you triumphant Conservatives advancing to an even Greater Than Ever Better Britain Brexit Land.

Well done on your great victory in England and, to a lesser extent, in Wales.  Commiserations on your wipeout in Scotland and sad loss in N. Ireland.

The DUP and Loyalists have made their bed; let them lie in it.

The DUP and Loyalists/Unionists got what they wanted but cannot accept the consequences and want back all the advantages of being in the EU without actually being in!

For decades, and even more so since the 'Yes' for Brexit, the EU has been incredibly patient, long-suffering, forbearing, good-natured, diplomatic and polite with us awkward, trouble-makers that is the UK. The EU has leant over backwards to be understanding and helpful. Even to the extent of agreeing to a no land border. Even then the UK is not satisfied. The DUP wanted out of EU, they got what they wanted when NI voted to stay in and still they are not satisfied! The EU should not make any more concessions to these embarrassing Conservatives and Unionists. They are the unreasonable ones who now need to knuckle down and accept their folly. Or, would they prefer a land border?

Guardian on G7 summit

‘Mistrusted’ Johnson feels full force of EU fury as Brexit wrecks G7 summit

European leaders made their feelings about the Northern Ireland protocol known to a PM desperate to score a PR victory

• Brexit bust-up torpedoes Johnson’s bid to showcase ‘global Britain’ at G7

Toby Helm & Heather Stewart

Sun 13 Jun 2021 06.30 BST

Unhappiness at the UK’s attitude to Brexit and its potential effect on the Good Friday agreement was undermining Johnson’s summit power plays and his relations with fellow G7 leaders. Tensions over the Northern Ireland issue were preoccupying Joe Biden at his first G7 as US president and causing real anger in the French and German delegations.

The reason for much of the EU’s irritation was a feeling that the UK under Johnson simply could not be trusted. Throughout recent weeks, and on Saturday, the prime minister made it clear he would be prepared to unilaterally delay the full implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol – part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement – in order to prevent a ban on some foodstuffs, including sausages, crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain.

Restrictions on British-produced chilled meats entering Northern Ireland are due to come into force at the end of this month as part of Brexit deals struck (and much hailed by the prime minister at the time) with the EU to protect its single market.

...

At his meeting with the PM, Macron told Johnson, according to well-placed summit sources, that Franco-British relations could only be “reset” if he stood by the Brexit divorce deal he had signed with the EU. “The president told Boris Johnson there needed to be a reset of the Franco-British relationship. This can happen provided that he keeps his word with the Europeans,” the source said. For his part Johnson accuses the EU of being inflexible and “purist” over the legally binding agreements.

Foreign policy experts and former British diplomats said that while the summit may have its successes on advancing initiatives on climate change and vaccinations for developing countries, it had also shown the UK to be distrusted and therefore unable to be a true global leader. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, a former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “The lesson of this week is that you can’t have a global Britain which is genuinely respected and influential and impactful around the world if people doubt your basic bona fides. There is no point in writing new Atlantic charters which depend on mutual trust, mutual confidence and the rule of law when you are operating as chancers.”

...

Lord Peter Ricketts, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and also an ex-UK ambassador to France, said Johnson was finding out that it was not possible to have good bilateral relations with France and Germany while treating the EU like an enemy.

“We have haemorraghed and squandered trust,” said Ricketts. “They announced the new Atlantic charter two days ago which has bold lines about sustaining international law and the norms of standards and international cooperation, that we will uphold the rules based order, and then we threaten to walk away from a deal that we signed 18 months ago, so there is a total lack of coherence there which I think people sense.

“In these bilaterals with Macron and Merkel – rather than thrashing out a policy on China which is in our and Biden’s own interests – instead leaders are distracted by having to make these polemical points about Europe.”

Another former UK ambassador to Washington and the EU, Kim Darroch, said that Johnson had failed in his big ambition for the summit: “An international agreement is not an a la carte menu from which you can choose what you like and ignore the rest. Once you sign off on it you have to implement it properly and fully. Global Britain is not going to work unless we are seen to live up to our commitments.”

At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it's as bad as you thought - Tom Kibasi

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/24/at-long-last-we-have-a-brexit-deal-and-its-as-bad-as-you-thought?utm_term=7bae36feb9971cec13ef78cf0954fc2f&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

We already know its contours: a barely-there treaty that will make trade harder and destroy jobs. Labour should oppose it.

‘The main impediment to a better deal is not the EU but hardline Tory ideology.’ 

Boris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: “The war is over.”

But with Britain in a state of crisis because of the government’s botched response to the pandemic, most people will react with relief or perhaps indifference. For all the triumphalist claims of the Brexiters, the sunny uplands they told us to expect are no more than another cold, dark, wet winter’s day. The 11th-hour antics means there will be little scrutiny of a trade deal that could shape Britain’s economic destiny for a generation.

Birmingham Left Unity

nsseored

BREXIT DISASTER - WHO’S SORRY NOW?

With the benefit of hindsight and after four years of chaos and fiasco, can the decision by many to vote for Brexit in 2016 now be considered a mistake?

The Brexit agenda was always a project of the hard right, and its success helped propel one of the UK’s most right wing ever governments into power. The fall-out from the 2019 election result has been a disastrous response to the Covid outbreak, a lost year in terms of dealing with the climate crisis, the ramping up of state racism, attacks on parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, attacks on devolution, endemic jingoism, a huge increase in the military budget, vast handouts to Tory cronies, HS2, a huge road building program, wage cuts, higher unemployment and hunger, and further private inroads into the NHS.

And this is even before Brexit has fully come into being. Whether it is a bad deal or no deal, it is the working class in the firing line and that is most unlikely to change on January 1st. There is every indication that things could get worse.

The Brexit agenda was one of the three main political factors that combined to defeat Labour in the general election and the subsequent removal of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader (the other two being the unresisted Zionist offensive and the Labour support for Unionism in Scotland). Instead of seeing Brexit for what it was, the British component of the international right-wing surge, the working-class base of the Labour Party was not sufficiently educated about its dangerous nationalism and racism. Instead of posing an internationalist and (eco) socialist response to the right-wing demagogues, the muddled response from the labour movement leadership handed over many disillusioned working-class people to the Tory right and the likes of Farage.

With a different response, the Remain base of the Labour Party could have been mobilised and augmented sufficiently to overcome the rigging of the referendum (for example the exclusion from the vote of the millions of people living in the country who would be most affected, EU citizens).

However, as it turned out, the Brexit offensive was enough to inflict a massive defeat on the labour movement.

The Brexit agenda now promises more deregulation, such as with Sunak’s Freeports, a jingoistic Brexit celebration jamboree costing million that could have gone towards feeding the hungry, and a potential destabilising of the Irish situation. The higher food prices and job losses associated with Brexit will add more misery to an already poverty and disease-ridden, vastly unequal, population.

The West Midlands is a region that has higher than average unemployment (and affecting minorities even more) and a very much higher than average employment in manufacturing than the other regions of the UK. Both indicators mean that in the event of no agreement on tariffs being reached this region will be more severely affected than other regions of the UK.

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/.../gor/2013265925/report.aspx...

The next stage of victory of the Brexit project on January 1st, will further encourage insular nationalism and bigotry. For the hard core Brexiter racists, what is there not to like about that? However, for the labour movement, for the working class, and for the oppressed, it will be a very different story.

Therefore, the question has to be asked again –

With the benefit of hindsight and after four years of chaos and fiasco, can the decision by many to vote for Brexit in 2016 now be considered a mistake?

SELF: Brexit folly can only be blamed on wrong judgements being made by our politicians. More expense, so more waste of our capital of natural resources and, ultimately, and I hope later rather than sooner, the eventual death knell of us so 'intelligent' humans!!

Rowan Moore on Brexit, climate, Cummings, Johnson and 40 years of Tory power

Sun 3 Nov 2019 11.00 GMT Last modified on Mon 3 Feb 2020 11.45 GMT    from the Guardian

CHARLES MOORE:

As for Trump, no, I don’t believe he is a conservative. His essential message is “Trump first”. The only thing I like about him is his refusal to be cowed by the self-righteousness of his opponents.

On climate change, I resist what I see as a political viewpoint masquerading as “the science”. The aim of the large numbers of alarmists is unprecedented government control and the relative impoverishment of western societies.  (SELF: Charles' impoverishment will come once all the very finite fossil fuels are in short supply and becoming too expensive to pump out of the ground.)  

CHARLES:

Cheap energy is one of the greatest emancipations produced by our civilisation. (SELF: a pretty short-sighted, foolish, grab what you can while the going is good, sort of society.  In fact, a one-off geological inheritance we are blowing in 300 years.  And, in the process, with the downside of turning earth into uninhabitable venus with its runaway greenhouse effect!)

ROWAN MOORE:

Yes, I do take the Leave vote seriously. But it was a narrow vote after a flawed campaign (SELF: "sharp practice" - Cameron on prorogation; Cameron should have initially announced the best of three if no one side got 55% or, advisory for MPs to make the final decision) that has been taken as a licence for whatever Brexiter politicians want it to mean. The missed opportunity was to unite the country around a way of leaving the EU that most people would be happy with. I believe Boris Johnson argued for such a thing at the time.

Re climate: if conservatives like yourself don’t want the issue used against you, perhaps you should try harder to show how capitalism can be reconciled with protecting the environment. Thirty years after Mrs Thatcher raised the issue the noises from the right seem to be saying “it’s not really happening” or “it’s not that bad” or “we’ll muddle through”.

What I find really striking is how strongly you feel that the world is against you and likeminded people, and unfairly so. What I see is 40 years in which the Conservatives have mostly been in power (without ever winning a majority of the vote, thanks to our electoral system), in which Thatcherism has been hugely influential, and in which the Daily Telegraph has, with an amazing blurring of editorial and news, helped to put your fellow columnist into Downing Street.

Of course, if you think you are wrongly oppressed anything is allowable – Cummings’s rulebreaking, Johnson’s lies and betrayals – but I would ask you, too, to check your privilege.

However, you have given me a clearer idea of how liberal assumptions can sound from the outside. I intend to watch myself when I fall into the lazy habits that can go with my worldview. I hope you – or anyone else who feels like it – will point them out to me.

Remarkable Corbyn, successful Corbyn, socialist Corbyn lasted nearly 5 years!!

How did he do it?  A man of the people, comforting the Grenfell survivors; standing up at PMQs for that workhorse and kingpin of transport modes - the bus; railing against all our many wars in foreign lands down the decades.

He skillfully steered a middle course over the Brexit shambles realising that his party was riven down the middle with pro and anti Europeans.  The Brexit General Election was his undoing because he tried to be democratic, principled and wanting to give his party and the nation a final say in what should be done.  But the irrational, impatient electorate had had enough of all the shilly shallying and simply wanted out after three and a half years of indecision.  Should he simply have seen the mood of the electorate for out and simply advised out and campaigned for out?  Would that have meant a much closer fight between Johnson and him last December?

He wanted massive spending to end austerity and to put things right for the poor, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable.  Ironically, that is now happening with Covid-19 but not to build that fairer, more equal and sustainable society that should be everyone's top priority.

For me, he was the best Labour leader I have seen and probably the best since Keir Hardie.

The last debate between Johnson and Corbyn on 6 Dec 2019

The last debate between Johnson and Corbyn

I thought that Corbyn was articulate, with well reasoned arguments and more substantial answers than Johnson's thinner comments with more doubtful content; even a foolish answer about crawling down the gangway of the House of Commons.  I thought Jeremy Corbyn looked and sounded prime ministerial.  Boris Johnson appeared hesitant at times and boringly repeated, often the misleading, illusory and empty slogan, 'Vote for me to get Brexit done.'  (SELF: the wrong priority; the wrong issue to make the right issue even worse)

During this election campaign that I have followed on radio and TV, Nicola Sturgeon was easily the most impressive party leader.  Very able, knowledegable; and, every difficult question thrown at her was taken fair and square and turned to her advantage to actually heighten her stature!  She should be the First Minister of all the UK, in my opinion.

Therefore, I would like to see a hung Parliament with a coalition of Labour and SNP.  It would be on a confidence and supply basis, it seems.  A Corbyn/Sturgeon first minister team - one can but dream!!

This autumn, I had seven days cycling and walking over the hills of the Scottish Borders

This autumn, I had seven days cycling and walking over the hills of the Scottish Borders.  I met a guy who commented that our society and culture is locked into fossil fuels. Such is our deep rooted addiction and complete dependency on them, we cannot survive without them.  Yet, they are quickly being burnt and, in the process, changing disastrously the chemical composition of the atmosphere. As Margaret Thatcher was well aware in the 1980s but did nothing!

Our food and drink landing on our table depends entirely on finite fossil fuels.  Without them we cannot feed ourselves or even get our drinking water.

Of course, we all have to become frugal fossil fuel users and, I think follow the example of Greta Thunberg.  I am also urging us all to insist that our political and civic leaders get their priorities sorted, show real leadership and reverse their spending priorities that lock us even more firmly into exploiting oil, coal and gas.

Apparently, Brexit is costing us billions that boost fossil fuel burning and disastrous greenhouse gas emissions.  As is the £1.8 BILLION, to 2026, to replace some buses and trains with trams in the Black Country and Brum. I am referring to Metro and Sprint that, along with Brexit, are all foolish diversions and a dangerous irrelevance from responding to climate catastrophe and the very mixed blessings of burning our remaining fossil fuels.  In the 1980s, I accepted the science that we are sleepwalking into a nightmare entirely of our own making.

If you think I am on the right lines, please write and speak to the leaders and their addresses, here:   September 2019 A5 flyer

Plus, to your MPs and MEPs and councillors.  Our priorities must change. Our personal life styles to one of minimum fossil fuel use.

From 25.5.19 to Deborah Cadman

“The more we spend, the more we burn fossil fuels, it seems to me.  Have I got this right?” SELF, 16 February 2019

“More or less right! … ”  SIR JONATHON PORRITT, 17 Feb 2019

"Just one caveat: as we decarbonise our grid, we’ll obviously be burning rather less of the reserves of remaining fossil fuels, and relying more on green electrons. But the rule of thumb still holds for the time being!"  Porritt, 27 October 2019

We are living infinitely on a finite planet;

Living unnaturally on a natural planet.

The epitomy of folly!

The Brexit brickwall = the tram rut = we Brits are going nowhere fast.

The Brexit brickwall = the tram rut = we Brits are going nowhere fast.  As well as by tram, train, bus or car!

"The link between Brexit and the increase in fossil fuel use" comes from the billions already spent over these last three years of referendum and, all the to-ing and fro-ing with meetings galore and documents.  The more we spend the more we use up our fossil fuel reserves. At the same time, as we burn them up, we tighten the grip of the runaway greenhouse effect to cause the collapse of the planet's life support systems.  We are all druggies addicted to fossil fuels. They have given us unheard of comfort and wealth but also a nasty and deadly downside that will continue to roll out this century, methinks.

With the over £60,000 per metre extension to Grand Central, the annual passenger journey figures have gone up to over 6 million.  This is still well short of what they said in the 1990s, in order to get the money out of government. Putting the trains back on the same 20 Kms mainline railway would have cost about £3,000 to £4,000 per metre in the 1990s.  Probably, less than that. And, of course, there would now be no need for the expensive Metro extension to Wolverhampton railway station. The nation has more money than sense. And every penny we spend tightens the screw on future devastating consequences for all life on earth from human climate change.

I was trying to be clever in making use of Donald Tusk's statement about "I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it safely".  I was comparing it with all those in Transport HQ, since 1981, giving top priority to trams rather than reinstating trains and stations. In addition, our councillors and officers are not at all bothered about their colleagues, in our district councils, giving planning permission for roads, but mainly buildings, obliterating 100 Kms of urban railway lines in the Black Country and Brum.  However, there is still 106 Kms that survive as freight only and mothballed, double track lines. All this destruction of transport infrastructure and refusal to countenance the return of commuter and regional trains on the 106 Kms, as railway passenger numbers have more than doubled since the mid 1990s with overcrowding on our commuter trains and longer traffic jams on our roads. Only trams are allowed.  Installing trams and tram stops is working out at about ten times more expensive per Km than simply rebuilding the stations and putting the commuter/regional trains back!!

We cannot afford to go on wasting, or misusing, perfectly good railway infrastructure, in my opinion.

Do you want our railway lines for trams or trains, Kevin?  You once said, so correctly, "We have to pay twice to get the trains back!"

Do read these writings of mine to understand what has been going so wrong:

THE TRAGEDY OF TRAMS WRECKING OUR RAILWAY NETWORK

FAKE NEWS, MISLEADING STATEMENTS AND LIES

Transport costs per kilometre

TUSK'S QUOTE:

"We will not gamble with peace or put a sell by date on reconciliation.  (Self: The Troubles in N Ireland may restart with any difficulty between or, distancing of, N Ireland from the Republic)  This is why we insist on the backstop. I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it (out) safely.  The EU 27 is not making any new offer. Let me recall that the December European Council decided that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation." The European Council President, Donald Tusk.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/feb/06/brexit-latest-news-developments-pmqs-theresa-may-faces-further-backlash-after-backstop-comments-in-belfast-speech-politics-live

All the best

Aristotle on Brexit!

Author: Sotirios Frantzanas

"To make this clearer, joining the EU made it obligatory for the UK to accept and enact on EU laws and regulations. This means that the UK parliament’s supremacy over making laws has been arguably reduced, even though the UK participated actively in the EU’s decision-making processes. This is also despite that it enjoyed possibly the most privileged membership that enabled it to be selective, and opting out from EU legislation on various occasions; the European Monetary Union, the Schengen Agreement and so on.6 

"It seems that the fact that the UK, much like Denmark, Poland and Ireland, had the opportunity to negotiate and opt-out from EU legislations is evidence that sovereignty, at least in terms of the power to negotiate, remains with the member-state; it is not exchanged for membership. That could be the case, if the UK parliament had lost its authority to withdraw the UK from the EU.7 That would be the case in which it could be said that the supremacy of the UK government has been lost.

"However, Brexit is the best example that the UK has remained a sovereign country throughout and there is no reason to believe that this would not be the case for an independent Scotland joining the EU as an equal member. In other words, the necessary sharing of sovereignty, in terms of having to accept EU legislation, is inevitable in the same way it is inevitable for everyone that decides to be a member of a democratic society to follow its laws and norms as well as to participate actively in their making. This is actually something that arguably enhances rather than reduces sovereignty.

"Being part of a community of nations requires putting the whole above the individual parts and thus voluntarily sharing individual sovereignty, to gain access to a larger pool of opportunities for development alongside other member-states. As Aristotle said, thousands of years ago: ‘those that live in isolation and not in political communities are either beasts or gods.’8 Similarly, any country in the modern political world that chooses isolation over participation in the global political community is either not rational or is suffering from delusions of grandeur. Without saying that the EU, or any other political community for that matter, is perfect, Scotland should be wise and choose participation over isolation."

THIS MUST BE THE ULTIMATE ABSURDITY TO RIVAL BREXIT!

Dear Brad - and copied to people who can confirm, correct or deny the accuracy of what I have written here.

You are brilliant at not being so high and mighty that you cannot reply.  You have the common decency and courtesy to engage and to engage honestly, too.  THANK YOU!  Everyone of my local politicians and officers could learn a thing or two from your fine example.

However, I still don't think it has dawned on you that the mainline railway, almost adjacent to the Waterfront, will be wasted, unused, possibly for the rest of time.  A railway "of national strategic significance" being used as a shuttle "bus on rails" tram line to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station', aka New St Sta. This is a most terrible waste of transport infrastructure that has already had millions of pounds spent on it and will now remain wasted, possibly for an eternity!  You will never be connected to the NE and the SW of England by fast, regional and even intercity trains.  Instead, you are being sold a pup - when you could have a mature, grown up dog!  Instead of the tram line at double the expense per kilometre of the M6 Toll when it opened in December 2003, you could have passenger trains from all parts of the country coming to Merry Hill - as used to be the case, of course.  They came to the station in Brierley Hill, itself because your site was Merry Hill Farmhouse and farmlands and the northern part was Round Oak Steelworks - either side of Level Street.  This was the case from around 1850 in the midst of the ultimately catastrophic, climate changing Industrial Revolution.  Even then, apparently, some scientists were warning of the terrible consequences of burning fossil fuels!

I don't think you get it, Brad.  No shuttle tram but a grown up regional and even national service on the full 120 Kms.  You would be able to get about that more easily in your car when driving through the Midlands.  Some motorists will use the mainline railway to allow you to have a more pleasant drive on motorways with fewer vehicles!

Anyway, it doesn't matter that you cannot see the grand scheme that could be yours!  You must settle for very much less than the best, as TfWM/WMCA also want.  You are in good company.

14 March 2019  

I wrote all that yesterday morning.  I have woken up today and feel that I must add this.  To be blunt, you are facilitating the permanent destruction of the UK's only/last mothballed mainline railway over 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby.  The northern and southern sections are in use but the most important section is YOUR section, in the middle through the Black Country and that bypasses "one of the worst railway congestion bottlenecks in the UK", viz: 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station' aka New St Sta.  The intention of the 'experts' is for a railway "of national strategic significance" to be used as a shuttle "bus on rails" tram line to 'Grand Central'. This is a most terrible waste of transport infrastructure that has already had millions of pounds spent on it and will now remain wasted, until humanity is passed over in favour of other life forms!  Millions of pounds was spent in recent years for the flyovers and tunnels over the forgotten 56 Kms to allow new dual carriageways and motorways to be built.  But the idiots forgot to go on to the next step - the rather vital trains and stations!

Your Waterfront Mainline Railway station must be connected to the shops by electric buses or by electric, driverless, elevated monorail. NOT the railway "of national strategic significance" used as a piddling little shuttle tram line. The current intention is as shocking as the chaos of our government's Brexit. It was the stupid transport planners and small minded politicians who allowed an excellent top model, Swiss monorail from Von Roll to be built and opened in, I think, 1990. Yet, the foolish, ignorant, authorities failed to connect the last 400 metres, from Waterfront monorail station, to the nationally important railway at Round Oak. Even then, the much needed commuter/regional trains and stations should have gone back - in 1990! Round Oak is almost adjacent to the Waterfront that you own.

I think, Brad that only you and your company can knock some sense into the heads of the public sector top officials, politicians and 'experts'. It is your national duty to do so. Seriously!

Very best wishes

Brexit shambles is all part of the problem

Is a true Brexit really practical or possible?  Everything works well with trade so why upset it all?  If it ain't broke don't fix it.
There are so many different versions of Brexit

It is all a wasteful and wrong diversion from tackling the number one threat to all life on earth, viz human induced climate breakdown.

It is costing billions in paper, to-ing and fro-ing and, with all the hard work in preparation.
There has to be many more years of renegotiating trade deals once we do leave.  I think this is a complete waste and diversion of tackling climate breakdown and resource depletion.
The more we spend, the more fossil fuels we use and the more greenhouse gases are emitted to enhance, catastrophically, the natural greenhouse protective layer.

It is putting the Good Friday Peace Agreement under strain.  Republicans do not want anything that will distance themselves from the Republic of Ireland or make things even slightly more awkward and slower in crossing the border.  Jan 2019 car bomb.  March 4 letter bombs.  The murder of Lyra McKee.  It could lead to the 'The Troubles, Part 2'.  Certainly, smuggling will be given a nice boost to help the coffers of the criminal and violence wins fraternity.

Any excuse for the men of violence to restart the troubles.  England may not escape.

Measure twice; cut once.  The basic principle of all construction from engineering to sewing.
A second referendum is needed to check out whether this really is what the British public want, now we are a lot wiser about the intractable problems involved.
The debate on Brexit did not really start until AFTER the referendum.
For some voters it was pure pot luck how they voted.  Many did not know which way to vote.
Have we learnt anything over the last three years?
Are we not better informed over the conundrum of the Irish border that never got a look in before the do or die referendum?
Such a momentous decision should never have been left to a narrow, "1% margin is enough" to decide it.  It was never like that over the referendums held over devolution for Wales and Scotland.  They were not rushed.  Membership of the EU is even more important than an assembly or a parliament for those two countries that took years of voting in the 1990s.

Two smaller countries on the periphery did not want to come out of the EU.  Only England and Wales wanted out.

52/48% to leave was not nearly enough to justify the vast expense and disruption incurred when things were working smoothly.

This is all a throw back to colonial days when we ruled the foreigners, we knew best and were a cut above the rest.  After all, we did have the biggest and longest running empire in the history of humanity.
Our successful and glorious past leads us to think we can do without the EU.  Our Royal Navy ruled the waves and our Brave British Army kept the native hordes in the colonies under control.  We can do it again without any membership of the EU.
Brexit was partly an anti-immigrant, anti foreigner vote.  We heroic Brits came racing to Europe's 'rescue' twice in the last century.  Hence, we never joined at the beginning.  To reflect this superiority, we are the only nation with 'Great' as part of our name.  We great, peace loving, Brits are just too great for the war mongering Europeans!  Why do we need them?  (tongue in cheek)

A week before the June 2016 referendum, Jo Cox was murdered by a pro white racist.  I think, she would still be alive today if it had not been for the referendum.

Europe is showing immense patience, forbearance and still wants us in!
So many Germans I have met genuinely love us Brits!  What on earth for?  Some even sent us an official, German government backed, 'love' letter in 2018!

Brexit has too many pitfalls, too much uncertainty, too many risks - especially to peace in N Ireland; offhandedly and so typically dismissed as Operation Fear by the English who have never had much interest in the too often, most unfortunate history of our unwelcomed involvement in Ireland down the centuries.

It is a most unfortunate diversion from reversing the troubled earth turning into lifeless venus horror show.

Donald Tusk on his special place

There is a special place in heaven for all those who repent.  Especially, those bright sparks at transport HQ + every cllr, MP, MEP and one Metro Mayor who all think that Metro trams are the silver bullet to solve our road and railway congestion problems in Brum and in Dudley (rundown) town centre. Their sketch of a plan features the second most expensive transport mode after HS2. Tram extensions are up to 3 times more expensive, per Km than building a 6 lane motorway. All this to supplant existing buses and trains. Brexit just can't compete with this idiocy!

Brexit is costing us billions and ratcheting up fossil fuel use at the very time when we should be reversing this ecocidal behaviour.  Even more is being spent on vanity, prestigious projects like HS2 (£55.7 billion) and £1.41 billion, for installation alone, on replacing only a few buses and trains with trams at £3 m each.  This is ecocidal idiocy.  Retrenchment is urgent out of self interest, alone.  That means trains and stations, urgently, on the 106 Kms of surviving train lines.  Fareless, electric buses on 100% dedicated bus lanes with traffic light priority for them, not commuter cars.  SCRAP £112 m ​spending on ​SPRINT buses​ for the few​, too.  Put the money into existing buses​ for all​.​  BUS FIRST, NOT CARS or, trams for the lucky few.​

A sea change in social attitudes is urgent to free up road space for essential users, by commuters using fareless buses, trains on train lines, biking and walking.  Give businesses less congested roads to cut their fossil fuel use.

Moral choices are vital; not vanity choices - HS2, Metro and Sprint - that entrench us in enhancing the natural, protective greenhouse layer.

READ today's IPPR report on reducing our over consumption, over-fishing, decarbonising our economy, carbon neutral homes, carbon sequestration, the impact of human climate change and the loss of life giving habitats on the planet.  Halve our emissions by 2030.  "We have to do multiple things simultaneously in an integrated way ... working together."  ('Today' on Radio 4, 12 Feb 2019)

The Stumbling Block to Brexit

Your correspondent Peter Hill is gung ho about the success of Brexit - deal or no deal.  The snag is that our Disunited Kingdom is now split down the middle.  Our remain Prime Minister converted to leave has done her level best to sort out the wishes of the 52% but, after two years of talks, things are at a pretty pass.  She has failed miserably and MPs are taking over to see what they can do.

In addition, two of our kingdoms voted leave and the other two voted remain.  From last week's excellent Radio 4 programme called 'Brexit and Ireland: What's at Stake?', about 30% of N Irish voters vote DUP that is propping up London's government and there are about equal numbers of English nationalists in N Ireland wanting to remain with England, as there are republicans wanting nothing done to distance themselves from the Republic of Ireland.  Ireland and the border barely got a look in three years ago in the referendum campaign.  We now learn that this matter is a major stumbling block to Brexit.  A week or two ago, dissident republicans exploded a car bomb in Derry/Londonderry.  It seems that they are getting very on edge about English nationalists in their own community and in England voting for Brexit that may destabilise the twenty year old Peace Agreement that brought sensible compromise, a cessation of violence and Paisley and McGuinness being called the Chuckle Brothers they got on so well in government.

Will Brexit now bring about the 'Troubles, Part 2' in N Ireland?  Are we all a good deal wiser about a break up that may have deadly consequences for N Ireland, in particular?  I, certainly, am better informed.

A Bigger Fiasco than Brexit!

HONESTLY, our leaders have more money than sense!

Further to my e-mail of yesterday, my standing as an Independent candidate is to expose a transport and financial scandal.  I think, the biggest in UK transport history.  But I need your help, Bev - PLEASE!  Are you able to do anything with this?

1. Scandal One: In yesterday's email, it was £1.38 BILLION to 2026 to replace buses and trains.  This further e-mail is to tell you of corporate corruption and idiocy and, of corporate incompetence and negligence.  I think these are the only words one can appropriately be used to describe this never ending scandal, viz:
2. Scandal Two: building roads, housing and trading estates and retail units on over 100 Kms of urban railway lines - all since the 1960s closure programme.
3. Scandal Three: decades of 106 Kms of under-used and completely unused, urban, double track railway lines in the Black Country, Brum and south Staffordshire, as we've all crawled along bumper to bumper in car or bus on choked roads and motorways.
4. Scandal Four: While, at the same time, many tens of millions of pounds were used to build tunnels and bridges for the Black Country Railway for new road and motorway schemes to pass over or under but, then, never to take the next step to put the trains and stations back!
5. Scandal Five because, since 1981, yet more tens of millions were being used to promote - not getting the trains back on 106 Kms - but, Midland Metro trams with a team at Centro House and glossy brochures produced to show what was going to be done.  But, the 15 lines covering 200 Kms never was done!  Only one line was ever done, in 1999 on a railway line, of all things.  Instead of simply putting the commuter trains back!  Now, being extended to Edgbaston to replace and push out buses that have to and will always have to take a much longer route to avoid the trams in narrow Broad Street.
6. Scandal Six: Metro One extended in the other direction, on an even more important railway line, to wreck any possibility of finishing a 120 Kms, principal, mainline railway between Worcester and Derby!

This is all a bigger fiasco than Brexit!

In a Mayoral campaign leading up to May 2020, I hope you can understand I can have much fun pointing all this out.  But, I must have, please the help of the press at various points along the way.  Can you help me, Bev - please?

My blog, 'Trains Back on the Tracks' have my postings with further details that you can mention, Bev.  Publicly available:-

http://timweller1.blogspot.com/

Best wishes

Tim

On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 at 09:31, Tim Weller wrote:

Dear Bev

Please could you do a write up for the public meeting I am calling to announce my standing as an Independent candidate for the 2020 West Midlands Mayoral election?  Standing, simply because I am so concerned about what is going so wrong in regional politics and to get across my ideas for the West Midlands to Mayor Andy Street, now and, to whoever is the new Mayor.

Public Meeting on Wed eve 28 Nov 2018

3 point summary: free up congested roads and railways with:

Trains on our existing but unused railway lines; instead of £1.38 BILLION tram network to replace some buses and trains.  This to pay for.

Free buses for all and not the few. Go electric instead of diesel Sprint.

Free electricity from promoting, urgently, PV solar panels on east, west and south roofs.

My key action points in my campaign for the Mayor to consider:

• No more good railway infrastructure wrecked for ever by buildings, roads and trams.
• Instead, commuter trains from the Black Country into Brum on the 150 year old railway line that has STILL not been lost and can STILL be used.  No more railway commuters packed in like sardines from Stourbridge!
• I'm the true friend of the motorist with an idea from Eastern Europe to free up road space for them by free buses for all and not the few (like me - for over 10 years, now!).
• Free electricity from campaigning for solar panels fitted to all east, west, south roofs.
• I'm the guy with another idea for the countryside to get people out and about using it more.
• I'm on the side of the poor and the poor planet.  Get low income people housed more quickly in modest sized, highly insulated and energy efficient homes.  Extra support and bias to the homeless, rough sleepers and for those coming out of prison to reduce crime.
• No more prestigious but grossly extravagant and immorally expensive vanity projects.
• The above gives top priority in helping to control greenhouse gases to reverse poor planet to become rich planet.
• Retrenchment rather than boosting the wrong type of spending to drive economic growth and yet more greenhouse gases.

My Andy Street newsheet for him to copy!