A brief history of Brexit

A brief history
of Brexit

by
Malcolm Potter-Brown

Auksford crest: a great auk displaying an open book with the words "Ex ovo sapientia"

Auksford, 2019

©
Copyright Malcolm Potter-Brown, 2019.
Notwithstanding the conditions outlined in
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anyone may quote from this article
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provided they acknowledge the source.

Contents

Why was a referendum called?

The role of Boris Johnson in the campaign

Boris as Prime Minister

The effects of a no-deal Brexit

“We are not stupid”

Conclusion

Why was a referendum called?
   Moderate Conservative leaders have always been plagued by the machinations of the Eurosceptic right wing of the party. John Major called them bastards in an expression of his fury and has since said that the right-wing cabal seeking to control Theresa May was even worse than the gang he knew.
   David Cameron was plagued by the so-called ERG or European Research Group, which was neither European nor engaged in research, but simply an anti-European pressure group led by Jacob Rees-Mogg. To these difficulties were added those caused by the rise of Nigel Farage, on the face of it an absurd posturing populist.
   Cameron believed that the advantages of membership of the European Union were so obvious that the British people would vote overwhelmingly to stay in and that a referendum would shut the right wing of his party up for the foreseeable future and allow him to govern the country without being constantly undermined by his own party. He was so confident that people would appreciate that the EU made the country richer and more prosperous that he and the Remain side signally failed to put forward the necessary arguments, thereby letting the other side dominate the campaign.
   What Cameron failed to take into account was that the popular press had for many years conducted a campaign of denigration against the EU. It was in effect a Nazi-style campaign in which, in order to ensure the loyalty of their followers, they invented an imaginary enemy who could be blamed for everything that was wrong in the country. Hitler, with no justification, blamed the Jews for the state of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. The Sun and the rest of the gutter press blamed the EU.
   What Cameron could not have foreseen was that Boris Johnson, up to then pro-European, would make himself the leader of the Leave campaign, and that the Leave campaign would lie shamelessly. They exaggerated Britain’s contribution to the EU by neglecting the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, the concessions secured by David Cameron, the grants made to the UK and the greater level of prosperity created by membership of one of the world’s major trading blocs. They took this inflated figure and promised to spend it on the NHS and many other things, using the same, totally illusory, money over and over again. They even claimed that remaining in the EU would open our doors to 79 million Turks, ignoring the fact that Turkey is not a member of the EU and is never likely to be one.
   What no-one could have foreseen was the illegal acquisition of personal data by Dominic Cummings and its use to target the sort of no-hopers who did not usually bother to vote in elections, and who could easily be persuaded that their lack of success in life was not due to their lack of talent and disinclination to work, but to the malign influence of some outside agency and that that agency was the EU.
   Despite all this one-sided dishonest propaganda the result was extremely narrow: roughly one third Leave, one third Remain and one third who did not vote. There is good reason to suppose that a majority of those who did not vote believed, like David Cameron, that the advantages of membership were so overwhelmingly obvious that victory for Remain was a foregone conclusion and that they need not bother to bestir themselves, for their compatriots would never be so stupid as to abandon the EU.
   Despite all this the much vaunted “overwhelming victory” was gained by only 52% of those who voted, which means that only about 35% of the electorate voted Leave.
   Not only that: the illegal acquisition of personal data and its misuse to influence the result of the referendum should have been enough to invalidate it – and it would have been had not Prime Minister Theresa May and her colleagues been far more concerned for the good of the Conservative Party than the good of the country. This determination to maintain some sort of unity and to hang on to power at all costs meant constant appeasement of Mogg and the ERG.
   Appeasement was also that attitude taken by the Government towards the fascist mobs who patrolled College Green abusing MPs like Anna Soubry and calling them Nazis for being pro-European. The whole vocabulary of these people belongs to the language of totalitarianism. Anyone who is pro-European is labelled “traitor”, and, as the Gadarene rush to no-deal Brexit gathers pace, it’s not just Remainers who are called traitor, but anyone who opposes crashing out without a deal. These people, stirred up by the gutter press, are the same mobs who have beaten up Poles and other Europeans and murdered Jo Cox. These are the Brexiteers.

The role of Boris Johnson in the campaign
   Boris Johnson is totally egocentric, egoistic and selfish. His boundless ambition is entirely devoted to his own interests, advancement and success, and it always has been.
   Writing of him in a school report in April 1982, his housemaster at Eton, who also taught him Classics, said: “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”
   As a journalist he was accused of fabricating quotes from people he had not even interviewed to make his writings and his own opinions seem more significant
   His political career has always been flashy rather than solid. As Mayor of London he left the day-to-day administration to his deputy, leaving himself free to introduce prestige projects. He has been accused of giving special privileges to an American businesswoman and arranging grants for her companies merely because of their special friendship. He denies impropriety but is considered a serial womaniser, was recently divorced by his wife and is now accompanied by his latest girlfriend, Carrie Symonds.
   When he was appointed Foreign Secretary by Theresa May it seems that this was a ploy to weaken his political position. The Brexit Secretary would concern himself with Europe, and Boris himself would have to be out of the country, with less time to organise backbenchers against the Prime Minister.
   His time in that post was not exactly successful. On his visit to Turkey he promised to help that country join the EU. He also expressed views about Saudi-Arabia and its role in the Middle East that Mrs May had to deny. His public pronouncement that Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe’s visit to Iran had been for the purpose of training journalists was entirely untrue – she was taking her daughter to meet her mother – but it increased her sentence. Johnson took no responsibility, and Nazanin’s husband asked the Foreign Office to continue its efforts on her behalf but to ensure that Johnson was not involved in any way. On other occasions he made inappropriate comments in inappropriate places.
   His decision to support the Leave campaign was made after a couple of days of private thought, and clearly with a view to his own advancement. He appears to have been pro-European earlier, even attempting to become an MEP in the 1994 election, but he is intelligent, a graduate of Balliol College Oxford, even if his intelligence is devoted only to the narrow aim of his own advancement. Boris took into consideration factors that David Cameron had ignored such as the anti-European stance of the popular press and the support gained by the posturing populist Farage.
   He calculated that, though Remain was likely to win, it would be a much closer result than Cameron realised, and that, as a Remainer he would be only one Big Beast among many, whereas as a Leaver he would be the Biggest Beast on the block. That would not necessarily be to his advantage if, as Cameron hoped, common sense prevailed and the Remain side gained a massive victory, but a close run campaign would further his ambition, while a victory would put him in line for immediate accession to the post of Prime Minister. To ensure that victory, or at least that close result, he was prepared to lie blatantly, and he may have known about Dominic Cummings’s illegal acquisition and misuse of personal data.
   The resultant narrow victory for Leave after a dishonest campaign placed Boris exactly where he wanted to be, and he would have become Prime Minister had it not been for the sudden withdrawal of support by Michael Gove, who, in a rare fit of honesty, announced that Boris was not fit to be Prime Minister.
   As a result Theresa May became head of the Government. She then appointed Boris Foreign Secretary to keep him occupied, but he and the Mogg faction continued to harass and oppose her, until, tired of trying to get Parliament to pass the deal she had negotiated with the EU, which satisfied neither Remainers nor extreme Brexiteers, she resigned.
   There were several contenders to be her successor. Boris’s campaign was masterminded by Jacob Rees-Mogg, and it largely consisted of avoiding interviews with people like John Humphrys so that blundering Boris could not be seen to bluster and make gaffes. Conservative supporters were persuaded that Boris would be most effective against Jeremy Corbyn, and he was elected with 92,153 votes in his favour, about 0.002%of the electorate of the UK.

Boris as Prime Minister
   There might have been a faint hope that Boris, having attained his desire, might consider his legacy and reconsider his policy of leaving the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. That faint hope was immediately extinguished by his first action as PM, which was to appoint Dominic Cummings as his senior adviser. This showed unambiguously that he approved of Cummings’s dishonest use of illegally-acquired data and is a further indication of his ruthless drive to power by any possible means.
   One of his first policy announcements was an increase of 10,000 in the number of prison places. This was intended not so much as an increase in the total number but to replace older prisons. The Government later reduced this to just over 3,000, but Boris then announced a further increase of 10,000, which was intended to increase the total number. This is the sort of
action one would expect from a totalitarian government. Most reformers would think increasing the capacity of the nation’s prisons far less appropriate than increasing the prison service’s ability to reform and rehabilitate offenders.
   The Prime Minister also announced an increase in the number of police officers – a sensible policy given the repeated cuts in police numbers and funding over the years. West Yorkshire Police agreed that officers should appear behind Boris while he announced the new policy and began a recruitment drive. Instead Boris began a long, rambling speech about his Brexit policy and criticising Jeremy Corbyn in a blatant attempt to make it appear that the police, who have to be institutionally apolitical, supported his policies and his party. This was Boris at his most typical, Boris the arrogant blunderer, so arrogant that he thinks he is above all the conventions governing civilised life and politics and that whatever he chooses to do is beyond criticism.
   This attitude of being above criticism surfaced again when Boris found members of his own party refusing to support his policy of a no-deal Brexit. Twenty-one MPs, including former Cabinet Ministers, were expelled from the Conservative Party for supporting a motion to outlaw a no-deal Brexit, which they believe will be disastrous for the United Kingdom. This is a totalitarian attitude: the Leader is always right and dissent from his views will not be tolerated, but it seems oddly inappropriate in a politician who has made his career from rebelling against the leaders of his party.
   Much the same attitude appears to govern the Labour Party at present as Momentum, the group backing Jeremy Corbyn, seeks to deselect anyone preferring a more moderate stance.
   Other Conservatives have resigned over Boris’s intransigence and determination to leave the EU on 31 October , come what may, with or without a deal. These include his own brother, Jo, who left the Cabinet, citing an unresolvable tension between family loyalty and the national interest – in other words, even Boris’s brother can see that his policies are detrimental to the interests of the United Kingdom.
   Amber Rudd, Home Secretary under Theresa May and Work and Pensions Secretary under Boris Johnson, resigned from the Cabinet and the Conservative Party over the expulsion of the 21 MPs, and she has said that decisions were being made not by the Cabinet, as is constitutionally correct, but by Boris’s advisers. It would appear that Dominic Cummings and his associates were deciding policy and instructing the Cabinet, that they were behind the decision to exclude those MPs who were very properly attempting to avert disaster by opposing destructive policies, and that Cummings was intent on turning the Conservative party into an extreme right-wing faction.
   Cummings himself ordered the arrest by police of Sonia Khan, an adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on a trumped up charge of leaking information, though it later emerged that her real “crime” was to have was to have stayed in touch with former associates who were close to the former Chancellor Philip Hammond. Why someone who is officially only an adviser should be able to sack other advisers and have them physically removed by police has not been explained. It does however show Cummings’s dominant position in the Government.
   The decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, using as an excuse that sessions would be largely suspended during the party conference season is another example of the hidden cabal controlling Boris’s government. It is a crafty, cunning manoeuvre beyond blundering Boris himself and bears all the hallmarks of having been devised by Cummings or Mogg, and it was Mogg, as Leader of the House, who went to Balmoral to ask the Queen to prorogue Parliament.
   Prorogation is a procedure used to bring to an end one Parliamentary session and open another with a new Queen’s speech outlining the Government’s programme. Prorogation normally lasts only three or four days. The Queen acts on the advice of the Privy Council and does not have any choice in the matter. It is not known whether she made any objections to prorogation for such an unusually long period at such a critical time, but the choice of Mogg to make the request suggests that the ruling faction feared that she might and that if she did Boris might wobble.
   The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, called prorogation of Parliament at such a crucial time a constitutional outrage, and there can be little doubt that Boris’s motive was to free himself from Parliamentary scrutiny so that he could rule unhindered and impose the no-deal Brexit the extreme right wing has always wanted. He says that his declared intention to leave on 31 October with or without a deal is a means of securing a deal, but, as the EU has repeatedly pointed out, his Government has not brought forward any new proposals and there is no sign of any desire on its part for a deal.
   Did Boris lie to the Queen? Since he has lied to almost everyone else, to his editor and his readers as a journalist, to his wife as a husband, and to the public as a politician, the balance of probability is that he did.
   However the Supreme Court, when asked to judge on the legality of the prorogation, did not investigate the Prime Minister’s motives but judged the case on the effects of his action. Prorogation for five weeks, the Court judged, had the effect of preventing Parliament from scrutinising and questioning the Government’s actions, that is from carrying out its constitutional duties, at a particularly sensitive time when the constitutional position of the United Kingdom might be changed on 31 October. The prorogation was therefore unlawful, and, as a consequence, when the Commissioners entered Parliament, they carried in effect a blank piece of paper. Parliament was not prorogued and the Speakers of the two houses could recall their members and continue the session.
   The Government’s argument that the prorogation was protected by Parliamentary privilege and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of any court, was dismissed. MPs do not discuss prorogation and do not have any say in the matter. Prorogation is imposed from outside and is
not part of Parliamentary procedure.
   Did Boris apologise?
   He did not. Instead he declared that the court was wrong, and in intemperate language called on Parliament to step aside and let him rule unhindered. His Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, attacked Parliament in equally intemperate language, claiming members had no moral right to sit. We have not heard rants like this from senior politicians since the demise of Adolf Hitler!
   This is all part of a deliberate policy by the extreme right wing to persuade the Brexiteers, that mob that infests College Green calling moderate MPs traitors, and the others across the country who support leaving without a deal, that Boris is the champion of the people against Parliament and the Courts, who are represented as undemocratic reactionary forces intent on overthrowing “the will of the people” – and this phrase that they trot out at every opportunity is itself a further deception, for, as we have already seen, only about 35% of the electorate voted leave, less than a quarter of the population as a whole.

The effects of a no-deal Brexit
   Throughout the campaign the Leave side made great play not only with blatant lies but also with empty slogans, notably “Take back control” and, in answer to any attempt to point out the advantages of EU membership and the likely disadvantages of losing it, “Project Fear”. Empty slogans are a way of avoiding reasoned argument.
   Since the narrow result of the referendum and Theresa May’s own meaningless slogan, “Brexit means Brexit”, which concealed her determination to maintain enough unity in the Conservative Party to enable it to hang on to power by appeasing the fascist wing, many of these disadvantages have become apparent.
   The immediate effect of the referendum result was a fall in the value of the pound. For exporters this was good news, but for everyone else it was bad. Imports became more expensive, including imports of food. The pound in your pocket has been devalued, not just when you go on holiday abroad, but when you go to your local supermarket. Prices are already rising even though Brexit has not yet taken effect, and supermarket shelves are already not as well stocked as in the past.
   A no-deal Brexit will mean delays at the ports of entry, and this will have a particularly bad effect on fresh foods with a short shelf-life. There will be shortages, and we should not expect them to be made up by expanded British production. Harvesting of many crops, strawberries for example, has been carried out in recent years by guest-workers from Eastern Europe. They are no longer able or willing to come to a country where they have been told they are unwelcome and where they may be beaten up by the bully-boy Brexiteers.
   Composite foods of all kinds, from ready-meals to cakes and biscuits, even if made in this country, are likely also to be affected. They contain many more ingredients than their home-made equivalents, including flavourings and also preservatives to extend their shelf life. Many of these substances are imported from Europe. Customs duties will increase their prices, and delays or unavailability will cause shortages of the foodstuffs of which they are components.
   Medicines too are likely to be delayed or in short supply, with possible devastating effects on the health of those who depend on them.
   Hospitals are already having staffing difficulties. European staff have been employed at all levels from consultant to porter. Senior doctors from Europe, whose expertise will be difficult to replace, are leaving because they have been made to feel unwelcome. Nurses are leaving in droves, leading to desperate attempts to recruit from outside Europe. Cleaners and porters, who perform tasks that many British people seem to think are beneath them, are often Eastern European, and they are leaving too. Perhaps they can be replaced by some of those people who will be thrown out of work when international companies move out of Britain.
   The people of Sunderland voted leave, confident that Nissan would continue with its plans to manufacture the Qashqai there. What they had forgotten was that planning for car-production takes place several years in advance, so these plans were made pre-referendum. Since then Nissan has withdrawn plans to produce the Infiniti and the X-Trail, and will now review Qashqai production if there is a no-deal Brexit. If production of the Qashqai is moved elsewhere the Sunderland plant has no future. Honda is to close its Swindon plant with the loss of 3,500 jobs, while in Cowley, BMW, which rescued the plant from closure and re-opened it to produce the Mini, will probably move its main production centre to the Netherlands with the loss of many more jobs.
   It is not just those directly employed by the companies that leave the UK who will suffer. Those involved in the supply chain are at risk, and hard times will come to the shops previously patronised by the workers who lose their jobs. An organisation called SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk estimates that already 420,348 jobs have been lost as a result of Brexit. A study by the Belgian Government predicts that 1.2 million jobs will be lost across Europe, with the UK suffering most and losing 500,000. Even the Business Secretary, Greg Clark, warns that a no-deal Brexit will cost thousands of jobs, while Statista.com puts the likely number of job losses at 750,000, and these figures predate the announcement that Nissan would consider moving production of the Qashqai away from Sunderland.
   All this means that, far from being richer and more prosperous as the Brexiteers promised, the economy will be hit hard. There will be widespread unemployment, and taxes will have to rise to fund unemployment benefits, there will be shortages of food and medicines, prices will rise, and everyone will be worse off. The generous handouts promised by Chancellor Sajid Javid and the promises of increased spending on hospitals and roads, the usual pre-election bribes, are illusory. Although Philip Hammond had prepared for some loosening of the austerity measures that had been necessary to overcome the American-inspired recession, and some money for the new programmes had already been set aside by the previous Government, crashing out of the EU will leave our economy so weakened that the promised improvements will be impossible. Far from taxes falling, they will have to rise. People will not be more prosperous, they will be poorer.
   Our position as one of the leaders in scientific research will also be hit. Science is no longer the preserve of eccentric lone-wolf academics. It is a major industry. The UK will no longer be a partner in CERN, the world’s leading research centre for particle physics, and funding for research into fusion power, currently taking place here, will be cut.
   A no-deal Brexit will also mean a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic which will not only disrupt cross-border trade but also provide an excuse for IRA terrorists to resume their criminal activities both in Northern Ireland and in mainland Britain.
   In addition Britain will no longer have automatic access to European security information, which will make dealing with terrorism, whether Irish or Islamist, much harder.
   A no-deal Brexit will reduce the UK from being a leading member of one of the world’s major trading blocs to a much less prosperous country with no influence on the development of Europe. English could have been the main language of the EU. London would have been the dominant financial centre, but after Brexit Frankfurt will be the financial capital. Useful European workers, who often come for short-term or seasonal contracts will be excluded in favour of economic migrants from the rest of the world, who are much more foreign and will stay forever, so the emotional wave of xenophobia behind many voters’ rejection of Europe will achieve exactly the opposite of what they hoped. “Take back control” turns out to mean “Lose all hope of retaining control”.

“We are not stupid”
   “We are not stupid” said a woman interviewed for BBC news after she expressed a desire for Parliament to withdraw and let Boris just get us out.
   Remainers have been careful not to allege that Leavers were stupid. Their votes, it is clear, were governed by emotional responses to a campaign of vilification against the EU, by downright lies and by slogans that sounded inspiring. However, if they still believe that leaving the EU will be good for Britain now that they have heard the mounting evidence of the immense harm that will be done to our economy then, either they see some personal advantage to themselves, like Boris and his gang, or they really are too stupid to understand the reality of the situation. If they deliberately ignore the evidence, if they refuse to listen to the evidence, if they bury their heads in the sand and say “Let’s just get on with it and get out”, then they are beyond stupid.
   As for the woman interviewee who said “Our grandfathers fought for this country to be independent so we have to get out”, she and others like her are not only mentally deficient but also delusional.
   The World War II generation fought to keep this country free of Nazism and to liberate Europe from that evil, murderous, totalitarian regime.
   The Germans are not hostile, deadly aliens. The Angles and Saxons who became the Anglo-Saxons, the ancestors of the English, came from Germany. The very word German, which came into Middle English from Old French, originally meant “having the same parents” and indicates that the English regard the Germans as their close relatives. Throughout history the various peoples of Europe have bickered, squabbled and fought, often driven to war by over-ambitious rulers like Louis XIV or Napoleon. By 1914 Germany had an emperor whose withered arm perhaps increased his desire to present himself as hyper-masculine, invariably wearing military uniform and making bellicose statements expressing a desire to make Germany a great power. A mad emperor precipitated an unnecessary war.
   Following Germany’s defeat the victorious allies imposed humiliating conditions in 1918, which were bound to cause resentment. Nevertheless Germany became a democratic republic, though its infant democracy was constantly threatened by extreme left and right wing agitators, both Communists and Nazis. The Wall Street Crash and the recall by America of its loans to Germany triggered hyper-inflation in the Weimar Republic, and the resultant economic chaos and misery, together with the threat of Communism, enabled Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party to worm their way to the centre of power, using methods very similar to those by which Boris Johnson reached Downing Street.
   Both the Nazis and the Tory right wing invented an enemy who could be blamed for everything that was wrong in their country. The Nazis chose the Jews and the Tory right wing the EU. Both gained the support of discontented members of the public by using lies and empty slogans like “Make Germany great again!” and “Take back control!” Both encouraged violent gangs to intimidate opponents, and both used immoderate language to stir up their supporters to further violence. Already we have Brexiteers calling anyone who wants to remain, or even wants a mitigating deal, “traitors” and even “Nazis” while the Prime Minister himself speaks of any attempt to prevent a hard, no-deal Brexit as “surrender”, showing he regards our European partners as enemies.
   When Hitler became Chancellor he used the climate of violence to persuade President Hindenburg to activate the Enabling Law, which allowed the Chancellor to suspend Parliament and rule unhindered by parliamentary scrutiny. We have an established practice of proroguing Parliament for three or four days in order to begin a new session. Boris Johnson misused this convention to suspend Parliament for five weeks with the intention of preventing scrutiny of his dealings with the European Union so that he could achieve a hard Brexit. He himself has never been anti-European but became so when he saw a chance to advance his own career. He is however now only the figurehead for a policy determined first by Mogg and latterly by Cummings, whom members of the Conservative party have described as a foul-mouthed oaf single-handedly changing the party into a narrow right-wing faction.
   The democratic structure of the Weimar Republic was barely 15 years old when Hitler suspended its Parliament, and the Nazis had managed to infiltrate both the police and the legal system. Luckily democracy in the UK is long established and robust, so that the Supreme Court was able to declare the excessively long prorogation of Parliament unlawful. The Government was obliged to accept this verdict, but they have done all they can to overthrow it, telling Parliament it has no moral right to question Government policy, with both the Prime Minister and the Attorney General ranting in Hitlerian tones. It is clear that Boris Johnson’s violent language is not just Boris letting off steam but a deliberate policy, designed by Dominic Cummings, to stir up violence whenever his extreme right wing policies are thwarted.
   Our fathers and grandfathers fought to defeat Nazism. By supporting Boris and his puppet-master Cummings these deluded people are supporting the introduction of a totalitarian, Nazi-style government in this country.
   Withdrawal from the EU without any deal will cause mass unemployment, shortages of essentials and inflation. There may well be a recession. Irish terrorism will resume. Scotland will demand a new independence referendum. Of course the Government will have to declare a national emergency and take special powers to deal with it, powers that it will see no reason ever to relinquish.

Conclusion
   A hard, no-deal Brexit would be an unmitigated disaster for the UK. A deal would mitigate this to some extent, and the closer the UK stuck to EU rules and regulations, the greater the mitigating effect, but to achieve mitigation the UK would necessarily have to follow rules without any voice in their adoption.
   There are three choices.
   -- Crash out without a deal, which is what Dominic Cummings wants, and you virtually guarantee a recession, unrest and the adoption of totalitarian powers.
   -- Mitigate the effects of leaving by accepting a deal, and the UK becomes a client state governed from Brussels with no influence over EU policy.
-- Cancel Article 50, remain one of the dominant members of the EU, and share in its prosperity with the advantages of the Thatcher rebate and the Cameron concessions.
   The evidence that has become available since the referendum clearly shows that only the last option will preserve our prosperity, our safety and our democracy.
   The time has come to abandon tribalistic politics. Don’t vote Conservative just because it is your family’s tradition. Apart from anything else Boris’s party is no longer the traditional Conservative Party. Don’t just vote Labour because Labour is traditionally the party of the workers. Under Jeremy Corbyn it too is showing totalitarian tendancies. Think of the issues. Don’t accept slogans. Consider what the future may hold for your children. Think before you vote.

Postscript
    Since I wrote this the following events have happened.
    Boris had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Hungary. Insiders think this was to persuade him to veto any request for an extension beyond 31 October.
    Dominic Cummings issued a statement saying that if an extension was granted his government would use its extended membership to disrupt EU governmental processes.
    British organic farmers say that after a no-deal Brexit British produce would no longer be recognised as organic by the EU, their export market would be destroyed, and many would go out of business before new agreements could be reached.
    The management of Nissan have confirmed that after a no-deal Brexit the Sunderland factory would be uneconomic and would close. Nissan chose to open a plant in the UK to have access to the whole EU. 70% of the cars made there are exported to the continent. Duties on component parts and on cars sent to Europe would destroy the factory’s profitability. It would be more economic to produce the cars for Europe in Japan.
    The leaders of six British manufacturing industries wrote to the Prime Minister saying that, while a no-deal brexit would be an absolute disaster, his deal would put British industry under considerable strain. The Bank of England and other economists confirmed that Brexit would cause contraction of the UK economy.
    President Trump imposed punitive sanctions on British, French and German goods, though not those of the rest of the EU, in retaliation for support given by our governments to the European Airbus, a rival of the American Boeing. A US spokesman stated that in matters of trade we cannot expect the US to put friendship above self-interest. In other words any trade deal with the US will be strictly "America first" - and we already know that Trump supports predatory American drugs companies with ambitions to strip the NHS.
    One trouble with Trump is his failure to understand economics. Trade can bring mutual benefits by enabling each country to concentrate on what it can produce most efficiently and exchange its surplus for efficiently produced goods from elsewhere, resulting in gains for all and a general increase in human wealth. Trump is stuck in a primitive mindset, seeing the sum total of human wealth as fixed, like a pie. If the USA is to have a bigger slice of the pie, according to his view, everyone else must accept smaller portions. His trade policy is therefore warlike, to enrich his own country at the expense of others, and the overall result is that wealth declines and everyone suffers, including eventually the US.
    A general election was called, but the Cummings Government insisted it had to be on 12 December rather than a few days earlier as the opposition parties had requested. The reason for the choice of this date is clearly that by then most university students will have returned home and will be unable to vote in their university constituencies unless they make special arrangements for a postal vote. It is known that most people with a higher level of education voted Remain, while those who left school at the earliest opportunity mainly voted Leave. Clearly the choice of election date is intended to make it more difficult for students to vote - a cynical manipulation of the democratic process typical of a would-be autocratic regime.
    Another cynical manipulation is the Government's refusal to release the report on Russian interference in British politics until after the election. The only possible explanation is that it contains information reflecting discredit on the Conservative party, most likely that the extreme Brexit wing was funded by the Kremlin and that the Russian secret service helped Cummings in the targeting of malcontents who could be persuaded that their lack of success in life was not due to their own idleness and lack of talent but the malign influence of the EU. Brexit is a considerable triumph for Vladimir Putin. The secession of Scotland from the Union failed, but the secession of Britain from the EU, weakens the EU by removing one of its principal members, weakens the British economy, and may very well destroy the United Kingdom.
    A third cynical manipulation is the renaming of the Conservative Party Twitter account as "FactcheckUK" so that Tory propaganda and disinformation can be presented through a source that appears to be independent and trustworthy.
    Both the main parties have begun promising expensive goodies to bribe the electorate, which they claimcan be financed by borrowing at the present very low interest rates. They are ignoring two facts: low interest rates are likely to rise, and Brexit will lower the UK's credit rating so that lenders will not offer such advantageous terms. The loans will have to be paid back with interest, which means the we,the people who pay taxes, will have to pay more and austerity will return.
    In the ITV debate between Johnson and Corbyn both men were evasive and appeared untrustworthy, and both were subjected to derisive laughter from the audience. How have we come to such a pass, that neither of the two main candidates is fit to be Prime Minister? On the one hand we have a superannuated student revolutionary who hasn't changed his opinions at all since he was 18 and who chooses as his friends every anti-British terrorist group he can find, and on the other a self-centered, bumptious liar who will change his opinions at the slightest hint of advantage to himself and has shown himself willing to risk plunging our country into recession and alienating Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and destroying the Union in order to further his own ambition.
    The election is still ahead of us as I write this. Please register and vote. Do not think your vote counts for nothing. That is how we got into this mess in the first place. Remember: one third of the electorate did not bother to vote in the referendum and left the way open to the liars and manipulaters.
    Please do not just vote for the party for which you and your family and friends have always voted. Think of their policies. If you are a Remainer how can you possibly vote Conservative given that Boris will give you either a bad deal or an even more disastrous hard Brexit. Labour might sound better, but Corbyn refuses to come down on one side or the other and is believed to be generally in favour of leaving. The only major party offering a definite Remain-policy is the Lib-Dems.
    If you are young and you want a good career or just to live as comfortably as your parents' generation, then you should support Remain as it has become abundantly clear that any form of Brexit will cause the British economy to contract. That cuts out voting for the Tories, but the Labour manifesto, inspired partly by Corbyn's long-held left wing beliefs and partly by his neo-stalinist adviser Semas Milne, will be at least as destructive.
    If you work in the car industry or any of its suppliers, or indeed in shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants dependent on industrial workers for their trade, you should support Remain to avoid mass-unemployment as international companies move production from Britain to the continent. Again, Boris will destroy our economy to further his own ambition and Jeremy will destroy it for the sake of outmoded socialist principles. Turf out the Tories, but don't let Labour in. Vote Lib-Dem.
    If you are Irish and don't want to risk a revival of the Troubles, you should support Remain and vote LibDem. If you are Scottish and want to keep the advantages of membership of both the UK and the EU, then vote LibDem.
    If you just want to give the smug,self-satisfied politicians of the two main parties who have divided power between them for so long a good kicking, but don't want to plunge the country into recession, then vote LibDem.
    If you care for democracy and wish it to continue in this country, you should kick out both the main parties. Tory policy is determined by unelected advisers, all answerable to Dominic Cummings, who has been decribed as a career psychopath. There is therefore an unelected,shadowy cartel behind the Government, and it decides what should be done without any mandate from the people. Boris is enjoying the perks of high office, of performing as Prime Minister and receiving the adoration of his fans, but he is only the monkey dancing to the tune of organ-grinder Cummings. The Labour Party has similarly been taken over by a narrow, extremely left-wing group, with policies designed by Milne. The survival of democracy depends on kicking out the present leadership of both main parties. If you are a traditional Conservative you should do all you can to get rid ofBoris and Cummings, and if you are a traditonal Labour voter you should do all you can to get rid of Corbyn and Milne, so that both parties can return to their tradional democratic structures.
    The way to achieve these aims is to vote LibDem. Despite Jo Swinson's confident assertions that she is a candidate to be our next Prime Minister that outcome is extremely unlikely, but a strong contingent of LibDem MPs could hold the balance of power, be needed for a coalition, and demand, as part of the price for co-operation with either party, a change of leader, since it is clear that neither Johnson nor Corbyn is fit to lead the Government. The losing party would then also be under pressure to change. In the long run, then, a strong LibDem performance in the election is to the advantage of both the Conservative and Labour Parties, and to the advantage of the UK. It will restore democracy, get rid of the unelected extremist advisers, and possibly prevent the economic, social and political disaster of Brexit. A second referendum would be inevitable, and this time the decision could be based on facts and analysis rather than lies and slogans, the third of the electorate who did not bother to vote because they thought the result was a foregone conclusion could have their chance to express their views, and the information that has emerged since 2016 could be taken into account. Take back control form the self-serving politicians who care more for their own careers than the good of the country and areprepared to subvert democracy for their own gains. Kick out both Jeremy and Boris by voting LibDem.

Copyright Malcolm Potter-Brown, 2019.
Notwithstanding the conditions outlined in Copyright and Concessions anyone may quote from this article or reproduce it in full provided they acknowledge the source.

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