Stop Tory Brexit!

This week, more than most, I felt like I was drowning in a cesspit of Tory generated excrement. Just when you think a new low is not possible, the Tories reached new depths of depravity.

By Wednesday, they had blocked upskirting legislation, lied about NHS funding, claiming it would come from a fictionalised “Brexit dividend,” and made sick and pregnant women cross the lobby in wheelchairs, in a bid to force through the doomed EU withdrawal bill. The Tory/DUP democratic heist has put us in the hands of the three musketeers. What could possibly go wrong?

Theresa May called a snap election last year to get a mandate for a hard Brexit. The people’s answer? “Not on your Nellie”! Yet, here we are, a year later, with the Brexit time bomb strapped to our collective chests. This is a Tory suicide mission and they’re bent on taking us all down with them.

Elsewhere, in the real world, the EU rejected Theresa May’s Northern Ireland back stop. The subject that no-body talked about in the referendum campaign, is now the circle that just can’t be squared. And still May carries on like a demented despot in charge of a runaway train.

The pundits got Brexit wrong. They got the outcome of the 2017 General Election wrong and they are doing it again. In their bubble of groupthink and incompetence, they have completely misjudged the anger out there on the streets. It is palpable for anyone who engages with real people in the real world. Far from getting £350 million a week for the NHS, Brexit is driving the final nail into the coffin. Closures to A&Es and hospital services are being predicated on staff shortages – brought about by the hostile immigration culture and fear generated by Brexit. When we need them most, foreign nurses and doctors are fleeing this country in their droves.

Who’s to blame for Brexit? The Tories and the right wing of the Labour party who, for years, threw immigrants under the bus, accusing us of stealing British people’s jobs, blaming us for the housing shortage and admonishing us for not assimilating into the British way of life, whatever that is.

Having scapegoated immigrants for years, Chuka Umunna, was a bad choice to be the poster boy of the Labour Remain campaign. It’s a bit like putting Trump in charge of UNICEF. Labour’s rhetoric had moved so far to the right, under New Labour (in a bid to woo UKIP voters), that there was a vacuum in political discourse - promoting the benefits of immigration.

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople, failed to inspire. Producing the toxic trio (Blair, Brown and Campbell) was a serious strategic error. The idea that the men who presided over the global financial crash could boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, was in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

New Labour was part of the problem. Progressive Labour can be part of the solution. That’s why I’ve signed Momentum’s Stop Tory Brexit petition 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-tory-brexit-momentum-petition which calls for the many to have the final say.

For anyone who hasn't read my angry Independent Brexit articles (there are many), here's one to get you going: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html