The Only Good Brexit is a Dead Brexit
Keynote for Labour in Europe in Brexit infested North Somerset
The Only Good Brexit is a Dead Brexit
Hold on to your seat. This is a long piece but I’ve saved the juicy bits until last !!
It’s always much better for other people to report on your work. They see it much more clearly and without the bias of the originator. I had spent several hours on the M25 / M4, composing a five minute keynote for Labour MP Sadik Al-Hassan, who I had lobbied to attend his town hall meeting on Brexit. Having immersed myself in the task, I was delighted when Lib Dem activist and Vice Chair Campaigns for the Green Lib Dems Jed Marson did a great job of summarising my input to the event with a fresh set of eyes. You can find a film of the event below, but read Jed’s reaction first. If you cannot wait till the end, find the film on EU Tube. Pleeeeeeeeease practice some “premature evaluation” as all the juicy bits are at the end …
Please support our costs in delivering more of these events via SUPPORT. It took considerable effort to get to the point of gaining an invite from Labour for this one. Our end goal would be to speak in Parliament to Labour in Europe and all the other progressive parties.
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Jed’s report
Campaigner and author Peter Cook visited North Somerset – the old political stomping ground of Jacob Rees-Mogg – to deliver a pointed assessment of Brexit’s failures and the urgent need to rejoin the EU.
Cook, author of Reboot Britain: Rejoin the EU, didn’t hold back. “I’m a Brexit fundamentalist,” he told the crowd, “but only in the sense that the only good Brexit is a dead Brexit.” He noted the irony that Jacob Rees-Mogg – once the poster boy of Brexit – has vanished from the political stage, now appearing on reality TV “trying to sell us the cheap training shoes and hormone-infested beef he once promised.”
Cook offered praise for local Labour candidate Sadik Al-Hassan, who he said was doing a solid job cleaning up the mess left by 14 years of Tory austerity on steroids and Brexit division. But he had less sympathy for Keir Starmer’s national position. Trying to make Brexit work is like trying to refreeze a melted ice cream. Cook said: “It’s not going to happen.”
Cook summarised the economic damage bluntly: Brexit is costing the UK £100 billion a year, plus another £40 billion in lost tax revenues. That’s more than the cost of social care reform, the PIP fiasco, or the recent winter heating disaster – combined. Meanwhile, household incomes are forecast to shrink by 1% over this Parliament. “Rachel Reeves can’t talk seriously about growth if she won’t talk about Brexit.”
Cook turned to the social consequences. “Farage barely mentions Brexit anymore. He’s moved on to the usual scapegoats – migrants, rapists gypsies, tramps and thieves – because Brexit failed to deliver.” The reality, he said, is that most people arriving here are legal and ready to contribute, but are stuck in hotels because of a Home Office backlog that serves only to stir resentment. “These are deliberate failures – not accidents.”
On the environment and trade, he warned that farmers are already paying the price of trade deals with New Zealand and, potentially, the US. “Brexit means British farmers are undercut, food quality standards are under threat, and consumers pay more for worse.”
Cook accused Starmer of quietly breaching his own Brexit red lines:
• Gibraltar has been folded into Schengen.
• Northern Ireland remains in the EU Single Market, with freedom of movement intact.
• A new product standards bill ties the UK into EU rules through dynamic alignment.
“These aren’t betrayals,” Cook said. “They’re admissions – that Brexit isn’t working and can’t.”
His conclusion was clear: “We must apply to rejoin the EU. Not out of nostalgia – but out of necessity.” Rejoining, he argued, would help recover lost growth, fill critical shortages in farming, the NHS and care sector, and allow immigration to be managed through cooperation rather than isolation.
“We’ve had the experiment,” he said. “It’s failed. Now it’s time for the grown-ups to clean up the mess.”
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Lib Dem Opinion - Jed Marson
I felt inclined to share this speech because we have reached the point of ridicule with Brexit. Two reasons. 1. The lack of fine touch of a blundering Labour government, kow-towing to a misled rabble of one in six not looking at facts and a few seeing a broken clock right a couple of moments in time and voting for it despite the rest not adding up. And 2. Here we are with trade deals we will have to row back from because people, and I mean the majority who spent our lives making standards matter, here and as part of the EU, know we won't let anyone, rich or poor, go without enough food of good quality so American antibiotic full meat. Not for us. We can do better and cheaper just getting back in the Single Market. I’m aware that Peter wants much more than this as an opinion leader.
Trade deals come with hidden horrors except in the EU where standards improve and toxic weedkiller that causes cancer is banned, for one.
Why would any country still, STILL make asbestos!? WE KNOW the monsters who make fags and the greenwashers use huge sums of money to lobby these vile products, that we should have had enough of globally and no, it's not good enough that 40,000 people in the US die from asbestos STILL. Rishi Sunak may yet be remembered for his fag ban. In the UK 40,000 a year die from poor air quality, but Labour's answer isn't too speed up EVs, but slow down pushing petrol and diesel vehicles. Farage and Badenoch need to start to care about people. In the Liberal Democrats we do.
The juicy bits - Peter’s report on the event
Only one Brexiteer showed up. They were under the illusion that I had been ‘set up’ to speak by Sadik, when the reverse was true. I had lobbied him by sending a hard copy of our book and he thought it important enough to give me a platform. The Brexiteer complained bitterly that there should have been a voice to explain the benefits of Brexit. Sadik indulged her by offering her five minutes to speak. She could not identify a single Brexit benefit, instead complaining that the family business making dodgy double glazing had had to close due to EU regulations. Almost certainly those sensible safety regulations were initiated or supported by British politicians. Do you really want your kids to fall out of first floor windows to have “Brexit freedoms”? Another attendee discredited her claims based on his own experiences of how Brexit has negatively impacted his business. I asked the group if anyone knew of any substantial and sustainable Brexit benefits. The room fell silent and tumbleweed blew through the hall.
Sadik pointed out that several Labour MPs are having similar town hall type meetings along the lines I suggested to my MP some way back. See National Conversations on Brexit. I am willing to do similar talks at upcoming events and even to present to Labour In Europe in Parliament and other political parties. To do so requires support. Please support our costs in doing so via SUPPORT. I am no longer able or willing to pay for travel and expenses from my pension and a regular donation of £5-10 or a larger lump sum will help us continue this work.
Sadik urged people to use their networks to write to MPs about Brexit carnage and the need to Rejoin. He pointed out that Labour in Europe do not currently have sufficient power to mobilise the exec. I added that a key determinant of what MPs prioritise are the contents of their mailbox. So, write personal letters and include a hard copy of the Rejoin EU book. Hard copy has a completely different social journey than an e-mail attachment. Simply stated, e-mails are easy to delete. Find our template letter here. Of course it’s best to write your own but you might start with ours to get lift off. I send mine handwritten in pencil btw - just a quirk but one that draws the letter to the attention of busy people who are almost immune to generic letters.
I took away the impression that Sadik needs more people to rise up if Labour are to change their posture on Brexit. This is difficult as most people have fallen asleep on the subject. He also seemed to indicate that a change in posture could take place if enough pressure were generated in this Parliament and that it may not require an extensively drawn out process. He explained that referendums normally have an expiry date of 10-12 years although there was no suggestion that a referendum would be needed. I agree. See our article on the matter for London for Europe.
We also discussed Sadik’s work with Stella Creasy in Labour for Europe afterwards. I took away the view that all is not well inside Labour on Brexit, Europe and Deform UK, along with similar views from my own MP, who I meet regularly. To deal with the rise of Reform voters, see our book on Brexorcism.
