I share the following Twitter thread written by Prof Richard Bentall this morning. I admit I am delighted to not be the only thread writing professor at Sheffield. Richard is professor of clinical psychology at Sheffield and, it seems, at least as angry as me. The post here is made with Richard's permission. The headline is a quote from Richard, but a sentiment I share:
1/ IMHO the UK now faces a crisis that is, in some ways, even greater than the one we faced when confronting Hitler. In WW2 at least we had politicians of integrity, who upheld our democratic values, and around whom the nation could unite. There was no enemy within.
2/ Today, the enemy of the people is the government itself which has become, as @Peston has noted, an elected dictatorship. Its crimes are so numerous that it has become difficult to remember them all.
Unroll available on Thread Reader
3/ It isn't just #Partygate. Remember the proven corrupt process by which PPE contracts were awarded to Tory friends during the pandemic, and also remember the £billions lost to fraud.
4/ Remember that much of the PPE - procured in a way that gave vast profits to Tory mates - has had to be thrown away as not fit for purpose. That's your money - taxpayer money - that has been stolen.
5/ Remember the persistent failure of government to act, especially in the early phases of the pandemic. Johnson flounced around, avoiding COBRA meetings, and people died. They didn't get the big calls right - they got them wrong.
6/ Remember the scandal of Russian money funded into the Tory Party, a suppressed Russia report, and the appointment of the son of a KGB officer to the Lords against security service advice.
7/ Remember the 'small matter' of £850/roll gold wallpaper. Johnson said he had no idea who paid for it and then it turned out (in a Whatsapp message Johnson had mysteriously forgotten about) he had asked Lord Brownlow to pay for it.
8/ Remember also that the architect of this shitshow has previous - funnelling taxpayer money to a woman he was screwing while his wife was suffering from cancer; wasting more than £40 million on a garden bridge project cooked up with his friends.
9/ The time has come to face up to some salient facts about the current situation and the magnitude of the danger we now face.
10/ First Johnson. As a psychologist I don't normally use diagnostic labels on people I've not met but it's clear Johnson is a psychopath. He meets most of Hare's criteria on the internationally recognized psychopathy checklist, which uses biographical data (look it up).
11/ A parallel concept from the political science literature is 'social dominance orientation (in my field it's unfortunately common for people with different specialties to come up with the same or similar concepts and give them different labels).
12/ High SDOs need to dominate and know no moral boundaries. For a good summary, read/listen to Bob Altermeyer's free (audio)book 'The authoritarians'. It will chill your bones (old Bob is a great narrator BTW).
13/ Importantly, high SDOs know exactly which buttons to press to manipulate ordinary people who have authoritarian tendencies (people Altermeyer calls 'authoritarian followers'), who constitute about 30% of any country.
14/ How Johnson got that way is not hard to speculate. From school reports at Eton he was showing the traits early on. From Tom Bower's biography it's clear that many of his childhood experiences could be politely called 'suboptimal'.
15/ The point is that (except with years of therapy - unlikely) psychopaths don't change. The best predictor of their future behaviour is their past behaviour.
16/ Johnson has betrayed every person who has ever loved him, every child he has ever sired, everyone who has ever employed him (including 2 PMs). He has been fired twice for lying. In the end, he will betray everyone in the country.
17/ The problem of having a psychopath running the country is not just the psychopath. It's the fact that psychopathic behaviour becomes contagious - he appoints other unprincipled people around him; they copy his style. The result is a PATHOCRACY.
18/ Which leads me to the threat to democracy. Because serial lying is one of the defining characteristics of a psychopath, we have a government of liars. The British system has weak checks and balances, and the constitution is unwritten, so democratic standards are destroyed.
19/ Be of no doubt: THIS COULD END VERY BADLY. In a pathocracy, the government will break every convention, bend every rule, lie and cheat to hang on to power. (Hence, their naked refusal to follow constitutional convention on misleading Parliament).
20/ The point is that psychopaths/high SDOs DO NOT THINK THE RULES (any rules) APPLY TO THEM. At best, expect lying on an epic scale in the run-up to the next GE. At worst, expect underhand tricks to activate authoritarian followers, and to deter some people from voting.
21/ Unless stopped, the best we'll end up with will be an Orban-style elected dictatorship in complete control of the media (it's no coincidence they're emasculating Channel 4); at worst the complete subjugation of Parliamentary democracy.
22/ I've avoided mentioning Brexit thus far (everyone knows it's an obsession) but I should point out that this is where the lies started and that it was the vehicle by which we ended up with this pathocratic government.
23/ What is to be done? It is five minutes to midnight but it is not too late. BUT THOSE ON THE SIDE OF TRUTH AND DEMOCRACY NEED TO GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER PRONTO.
24/ First, the surest way of getting rid of this threat to democracy is for progressives, WHO ACTUALLY ARE A MAJORITY IN THIS COUNTRY, to build an alliance. That means @UKLabour, @TheGreenParty and @LibDems.
25/ I've heard all the arguments against a progressive alliance and none of them hold water when judged against the threat we face. There are many ways of doing it BUT IT MUST BE DONE.
FIGURE IT OUT FOLKS!
26/ A progressive alliance must be linked to constitutional reform. IMHO FPTP is at the root of many of our problems; it facilitates elected dictatorship and it stifles new, young political voices emerging outside the two-party system.
27/ Something also needs to be done to make the constitutional conventions binding. If a PM can be proven to lie to Parliament he should get his marching orders, without a doubt.
28/ The second thing we must do is get out young adult voters. They have been shafted by the Tories (astronomic and increasing uni fees; less job security than their parents; EU rights taken away; home ownership a distant dream). They hate the Tories for good reason.....
29/....but they don't vote. How do we get them to vote? I don't know but progressives in this country need to figure this out and fast. Do we campaign in unis? Do we find more people like @Femi_Sorry who can reach out to them and inspire them?
30/ Third, the opposition needs to fucking well OPPOSE. The huge elephant in the room is Brexit. I understand now is not the time to talk about rejoining but it is the time to talk about the harms being done by the type of Brexit we have now.
31/ I've written an analysis of this before. TL:DR the public is open to the idea of a closer working relationship with Europe. A BETTER DEAL WITH EUROPE IS A VOTE WINNER.
Unroll available on Thread Reader
32/ So opposition politicians, particularly in @UKLabour need to do some hard thinking and get their Brexit story right. Because the Tories are going to try to use Brexit as one of their authoritarian-activating tricks in the next election.
33/ @UKLabour just saying they support Brexit as it is won't work, IMHO. It sounds disingenuous. But saying we will reverse Brexit will play into Tory hands. A better deal with Europe, correctly explained, is the right approach.
34/ What to do about the @Conservatives? It's time to recognise that the Tory Party is actually dead, as I've tweeted about before:
Unroll available on Thread Reader
35/ At some point, decent Tories (there are some) are going to have to do something to restore their party and root out the racist, nationalist entryists who have taken over. It will be a tough job.
36/ So that's my rant for today. I'm so damned angry at the bastards who are destroying my country. IMHO the time for civil disobedience in near; we are at the last chance saloon. The country may not survive.
Footnote #1. Yesterday I predicted that the psychopaths in charge will do anything to activate their authoritarian followers. No step will be too low. Today they announced this:
UK to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing
A quote from the American historian (and Russia expert) Timothy Snyder seems pertinent:
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‘The Authoritarians’ link (tweet 12) isn’t working for me. Has anyone else found that to be the case too?
It should work – but I replaced it just in case
I still don’t get why the opposition parties will not work together. Even in 2019, when the current mob gained an 80 seat majority, there were more ABC (anyone but conservative) votes than there were for the Tories. So, surely it wouldn’t take much effort to coordinate, work together and gain many seats.
This is a very worrying time – the ‘othering’ is being ramped up. Immigrants/asylum seekers today, benefit claimants tomorrow, progressives after that, then liberal lefties – the list will grow.
This alleged PM (it’s in name only) is destroying this country and will not stop.
Craig
Craig sadly the Bain Principle ( see e.g. http://www.kenbell.info/2015/04/labour-needs-to-scrap-bain-principle-as.html ) is not just for Scotland’s politics but also for Westminster if there is a call for co-operation with SNP in any way shape or form.
Sort Labour out and walls will crack.
I leave others to work out how to get them to admit and repent decades of ingrained prejudices. Beyond me!
That is sickening Hazel, but unsurprising. As I’ve thought for some time now, of all the factors contributing to the undeserved dominance of British politics by the Tories, the greatest is Labour’s absurd tribalism. Which poses the question, is Labour really a progressive party? A party which believes it alone has the right to be in power, which will actively seek to sabotage other non tory parties if they are in power rather than join them in defeating the right, which prefers to keep an utterly unfair voting system when it had a golden chance to replace it with PR; disgraceful.
The tories are a party of corrupt incompetent liars, and Labour are their enablers.
Excellent.
A month ago colleagues from the Covid team at my council where I work spent 3 days sending their faulty PPE back – we have a warehouse full – I saw them taking it out and loading it up in lorries (more expense). Every box had a red cross on it noting it as unusable.
As for ‘authoritarian followers’ – this chimes with Hannah Arendt’s observations on the ‘banality of evil’ (yes it is funny how the same ideas get recycled and called different names) – just how ordinary the ‘Eichmann’s’ of this world are and that at any time, society has social types within it who can support psychopaths.
I mention Arendt a lot because this is where Tim Snyder and his writings originate from. Arendt was a very brave woman who felt that it was important to explain fascism as well as abhor it – to explain how it could possibly come into being such was the shocked reaction to the scale of inhumanity under the Nazis. She took a lot of flak for doing this as her fellow Jews felt that she was excusing Eichmann whose trial she attended.
Instead of being confronted with some sort of assertive, beguiling and resolute figure of evil, to Arendt, Eichmann was just plain ordinary, without imagination or sense of personal responsibility. Eichmann – under severe cross examination by the Israeli judges – actually explained at his trial how the militarised Nazi society worked – that people knew no better and essentially surrendered themselves – their personal human sovereignty – to that of the Nazi ‘collective’ mind-set because there was no other way to survive. Obedience was life. But also Eichmann also felt that obedience meant that personal culpability could also be avoided and ‘offshored’ to The Party.
Of course, the Israeli’s did not agree with that and he was hanged.
(I thought I’d just put that in for all you Eichmann’s out there in this country whom we call ‘Tory/BNP/Farage supporters’ – and some of you communists had better be careful too).
And of course history is littered with those who did not obey the Nazi mindset – thank goodness
An accurate description of the gangsters, and I do not think that word is too strong, that currently rule us, but even more than opposing the Tories, the opposition parties need to be able to offer a positive vision of the country that the overwhelming majority of people would like to live in.
Decent homes, genuine full employment, properly funded public services and making democracy more meaningful so that people have a genuine say in how their country is run.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would be a good guideline.
Meeting people’s needs, Safety, Belonging, Respect, The Freedom and opportunities to be the person you want to be.
If the opposition parties are not able to formulate such a vision that will reach and be understood by everybody in this country then the future is grim indeed.
According to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised, to be classed as a psychopath, one must satisfy a majority of the following traits: irresponsibility; lack of empathy; asocial tendencies; grandiose self image; inability to feel remorse; manipulation of everyone & everything; refusal to accept responsibility (an excuse for every ‘error’); superficial relationships with others. The astonishing thing is that Johnson appears to satisfy every single one of these traits, not simply a majority, which is clinically unusual.
To be strict about it, Hare would view Johnson as a corporate psychopath rather than a psychopath simipliciter — the latter are often in prison while the former are not, the difference between them seemingly hinging on the use of physical violence. Whatever the case, psychopaths can be extremely dangerous, as clearly set out in the post. And this is not to say that corporate psychopaths never go to prison; some have, like a few Enron officials.
Parallel to Bob Altemeyer, I have argued that Johnson is a fascist enabler rather than a fascist per se. The reason I have done this is that even fascists have some principles, however odious, while Johnson appears to have none. Psychopaths have no principles either, other than deeply narcissistic ones, which can’t really be classed as principles in the strict sense.
This is a tremendous post. I am glad that someone has come out and said what has been needed to be said for some time. And thanks, Richard, for posting it.
Nice one, larry.
Interesting.
Larry
I profoundly disagree with you about Johnson.
All fascist thinkers have one principle in mind, that being the principle of attaining Power – the agency of. And they are unprincipled as to how they will attain it – lying is not a problem.
And once they have power, how to retain it (through division, and the intellectual validation of unreason and intolerance of any counter-narrative etc., which you should be familiar with by now).
Without power, they are nothing but a quirky side line.
The Neo-liberals of the Mont Pelerin Society (who were fascists without realising it maybe although they claimed to be anti-fascist) also realised the power aspect of their dreams which is why they have continuously relied upon and used their fealty to rich powerful self-invested interests to create ‘think tanks’ and economic departments in certain universities to further their aims and cement themselves in.
Power is all about occupying the commanding heights of discourse and influence as with any other battlefield. Fascists know this and power is their obsession.
If we do not accept this, then the idea that Boris is just some buffoon who is just an ‘accidental fascist’ will just disarm us as it already has done, and explains how he got here in the first place.
As the judges at the Eichmann case concluded, there is no such thing as innocence when it comes to fascist behaviour. To be fascist is to prostrate yourself to the will of an ideology without questioning it – in effect – accepting it and codifying fascism internally. You have made a choice – believe it or not.
Yes – one is therefore guilty – and so is Johnson. There is no defence I’m afraid.
It’s the essential difference perhaps between being a human being or a machine or a tool. From what I see on the web and the news last night, we have loads of tools in our society who mistake themselves for human beings.
And Johnson the psychopath? Yes – I think so – he has those tendencies and what brings him close is the obsession with power. Killers exercise the power of life and death – self-anointing themselves in the process as giver and taker and insouciant to the consequences and feelings to and of others.
Power is as power is. It’s central to the fascist and psychopathic mindsets. But let’s take a look at Hare’s list shall we?
Hare’s List:
Do you sense you are someone extremely important?
Would you say you need constant stimulation?
Do you find pleasure in manipulating people?
Would you lie in order to get your own way?
Do you never say sorry?
Are you known to be charming and persuasive?
Would you agree you show little emotion?
Are you incapable of feeling empathy for others?
Are you in and out of relationships all the time?
Do you have a promiscuous sex life?
Are you impulsive and live for the moment?
Are you known for behaving irresponsibly?
Do you fail to accept responsibility for your actions?
Is it right to get as much as you can from other people?
Is it hard to control your behaviour?
Did you display early behaviour problems?
Do you lack long-term goals?
Do you have a history of juvenile delinquency?
Have you ever had your parole or bail revoked?
Are you known for committing many different criminal acts?
Having read this – there are some that perhaps only Boris and his tutors/employers could answer (especially if they sacked or disciplined him), but I see many ticks here that apply to Boris.
In fact, when we create our new republic one day, perhaps this check list might be used to prevent people like Johnson, Patel, Gove, Raab – and the rest – from ever sitting in public office.
Now wouldn’t that be a good idea? Local councillors too from what I’ve seen over the years.
I rest my case.
Sorry, PSR, but your Hare list is not restricted to psychopaths. It includes other, similar, personality disorders, and it is psychopathy that is under discussion. I am distinguishing between psychopathy and sociopathy in particular, as some use the terms interchangably; but I think this is a mistake. There are subtle differeces between these disorders. Psychopathic disorders can be the more dangerous and difficult to deal with.
I am afraid that we are going to have to agree to disagree about fascism. I think you have misunderstood what I wrote.
Corrigendum: for my ‘psychopath simpliciter’, please substitute ‘criminal psychopath’. The contrast in the literature now is between the criminal psychopath and the corporate psychopath. A lot of attention is now being paid to the corporate psychopath, probably because the initial emphasis was on the criminal psychopath, accompanied by limited understanding of the importance, possibly even the existence, of corporate psychopaths in large organizations.
No Larry.
I’ve not misunderstood you at all. No.
All I’m saying is that the nexus of fascism and psychopathy is the notion of power. It’s what brings the two together and how they see it and how they use it.
It explains (perhaps) for example how the Neo-liberal ‘economist’ Milton Friedman was able to work with Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
Trust me.
We are in agreement, then. I do remember Friedman’s dalliance, if one could call it that, with Pinochet. Not a good look, to say the least.
There is a small error in the post, though in the context of the post, it is small indeed. There is no such thing as taxpayers’ money as taxes do not underwrite government expenditure. It is public money to be sure, but it doesn’t come from the taxpayer. It comes from the Treasury, a UK government and, thus, public institution.
Much to agree with, but.
I’m reading Caroline Elkin’s “Legacy of Violence” – a history of the British Empire. It makes for very gim reading. Mendacious Fatberg’s hero, Churchill, comes out very badly. I’d suggest that with the loss of empire, the Tories are now bullying/abusing Uk serfs since they have nobody else to bully & abuse. They have always been bullies & abusers it comes with the schooling ably profiled by Nick Duffel in various books (e.g. The Making of Them). MFatberg is not really exceptional, the British body politic is/has been stuffed full of liars, crooks & fantasists (e.g. Lloyd George & honours, B.Liar and Iraq). Furthermore, the media system for centuries has been/is as efficient as that of Russia’s in muting dissenting voices (Good Morning Britain & “Just Stop Oil” one recent example, Corbyn’s monstering another) Elkin’s profiles the malign role palyed by Uk media in the context of the suppression of British Empire atrocities.
One way forward is for people to join a political party. Liebore has purged some members but might struggle to remove large numbers that join & then demand a voice (which at the moment is very muted). The solution is political, Uk serfs need to engage otherwise they will remain “idiots” – as in the original Greek meaning of the word.
As for : “decent Tories (there are some)”, I leave it to the late/great Iain M Banks to have the last word:
“I’m not arguing that there are no decent people in the Tory party, but they’re like bits of sweetcorn in a turd, technically they’ve kept their integrity but they’re still embedded in shit” Iain Banks
Mike, thank you for the Iain Banks comment. Do you have a reference for the quote to hand, by any chance?
Sadly, no.
I greatly miss Iain, both for his writing and as somebody that could see through the blather & bullshit. A thoroughly decent person.
The Iain Banks quote is from The Quarry 2013.
Jan, thank you for the reference. Much appreciated. Mike, agree completely about Banks. I do love his books. So sad to see him go way too soon. His marriage proposal to his partner was typical Banks – no flinching from reality and no sentimentality in the proposal either. I miss waiting for the next book from him, knowing there will be no more.
That was a good tweet and it ticks a lot of the relevant boxes.
“Pathocracy” – tick
“Rwanda” (WTF?!) – tick
the Authoritarian 30 per cent – tick
getting out the youth vote – tick
With that last one it doesn’t necessarily require other young people to do that. Its people like Corbyn and Bernie Sanders that have done it best thus far. FWIW that fact is at least worth considering.
Oh, and I forgot two:
the Progressive Alliance – tick
getting rid of FPTP – tick
Put those six ticks together and Bentall has the beginnings of a good platform.
Good summary, Marco. Very helpful & easy to remember.
Absolutely spot on, the professor nailed it. I am just afraid where all this may lead to. I really can’t understand the general populations thinking! Your posts are a breath of fresh air. Thank you for spending the time to do the research and placing it on your blog.
Funny how nobody seems to credit the SNP for being the actual ‘opposition’ at Westminster. The SNP has consistently spoken against—and voted against—all the Tory policies and actions that have brought us to this pass. The SNP has openly offered to form a working alliance with Labour and the other opposition parties to thwart the Tories and bring this madness to an end. But Labour spurns that offer, and continues to enable the Tories, either by voting with them on so many issues of huge importance, or ‘abstaining’ rather than going on record as opposing them.
Ian Blackford is portrayed in most of the mainstream media as a figure of fun. When, in fact, he stands up in the House of Commons, day after day (amidst groans, catcalls and insults like ‘go home’ etc) and routinely articulates what people throughout the entire UK—people who actually oppose the Tories—are thinking, feeling and hoping for. Unfortunately the SNP only stands candidates in Scotland, so the rUK has nobody who will actually DO something to vote for.
What’s your problem, Labour? Could it be your knee-jerk anti-Scottish-independence mindset lets you stand idle while the Tories wreck all that is/was worth keeping in the entire UK? That, folks, is irony.
I have noted that too Janet for what it’s worth. But I wonder what Blackford – for all his gutsy holding the Government to account – thinks about a Scottish sovereign currency?
Sitting here eating my hot cross bun this morning I’m struck once again how certain human beings want to make life harder for other human beings.
A colleague at work – whom I think was trying to save me in a religious sense – gave me a book about Jesus a number of years ago. When I actually sat down to read it it wasn’t bad at all. Two of the quotes attributed to Him in the book really caught my attention:
‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out by religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly’.
(Matthew 11:28-30)
‘You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?’
(John 11:25-26) Both quoted from ‘The Message’ Eugene H. Peterson BTW.
The first ‘quote’ is very attractive to me because it hits you at personal level devoid of the accoutrements of mass religion. It is an invitation to worship through doing – through action in your life by following a good example – Jesus himself I think.
The second I interpret as the possibility to make heaven on earth right now if we wanted to. And also, it is better to live on in people’s memories for the right reasons – good reasons.
All this business about Heaven – this ‘deferred benefit’ as I call it is I think is one of the big mistakes in religion – as much as how the ‘forgive us our debts’ has been twisted to favour towards the lenders over the years in the Lords Prayer (see Michael Hudson). To tell us that we can only have some sort of heaven after we die, some sort of comeuppance even – is a big mistake and an opportunity to kick the can down the road by humanity and avoid accountability to our fellow man. It sort of de-values the here and now of existence and leads to things like environmental degradation and other short termism.
I don’t think that that was the message at all. The message was to try live in peace and empathy with each other and the planet during the time we have. The battle around this has been raging since Jesus died.
Just a secular take on the holiday period that’s all.
There’s a Quaker joke that a person who comes into a silent meeting whispers to an obviously experienced attended “When does the service begin?” “When the Meeting’s ended” is the reply.
Faith is not for Sunday
It is for life.
Yes, I get that.
If you mean faith in Jesus (or for others, God) – yes, it’s also for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
I am now 75 yrs of age and have been a student/follower of politics all my adult life since taking an ‘O’ level GCE in British Constitution at evening classes after leaving school, following this with an ‘A’ level and later, as a mature student, a degree in Politics and Sociology. Taking an interest in such a subject, before I could visit the voting booth, naturally led me to follow politics in the news at an early age ( I also got a time for other teenage things too, the Beatles, Stones, football etc.!). Such a subject should be taught in schools, everyone should have a grounding in how our country is governed, it’s institutions, processes and history. Especially the struggle to obtain that precious vote.
Sadly, the respect I obtained for our political institutions, rules and conventions (with of course always the scope for reform) has been destroyed by this government and I, like many others, just cannot believe what is happening in our country.
Rampant naked Capitalism through the promotion of the free market by Thatcher and the growth of neo-liberalism, has led to a plundering by the rich and the replacement of democracy by a kleptocracy and plutocracy. I fear for the future of my grandchildren.
Thanks
For some reason Scotland was not mentioned once: although Scotland is usually the political barometer that measures looming UK crises. It also offers some help in finding a solution. Of course, it may be the writer has already given up on Scotland
John, the alternative view may simply be that the writer considers Scotland and the views of its people to be irrelevant.
The Sunday National’s Seven Days supplement contains a succinct article by a leading Scottish lawyer with strong interests in constitutional law, John Drummond. His article addresses the damage to democracy in UK resulting from the leadership of a serially mendacious and morally corrupt Prime Minister.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/20073882.boris-johnsons-uk-immoral-pursuit-indefensible/
He asks the pertinent and serious question: “Why should anyone now obey the law in Britain?” And demolishes the Tories’ insistence that a PM ought not to be challenged during a war (despite Britain changing leader 3 times during WW2 – Attlee was the third in July 1945) by inferring “it will not do to claim that ethics are very important, but now is not the time.”
Worth a read.
Or maybe the thread was written about the UK government?
On the question of Brexit, perhaps the People’s Vote/Remain lot should start campaigning to rejoin the Customs Union. We now have some real tangible, visible signs of the failure of Brexit. For example 15-mile lorry queues into Dover, fuel and food shortages, labour shortages and issues around the Irish border.
Rejoining the customs union would be one way of mitigating these issues, it would also allow those who voted for Brexit to perform the mental gymnastics that they are still no longer part of the EU. It would be, one would hope, a pragmatic solution to the divisiveness that has been caused by Brexit.
A well written analysis but it ignores a few facts that could question some of the suggested treatments…
The show began in 2010 with austerity not the brexit referendum… are the LibDems to be trusted when they are up to their necks in it… and; are Labour to be trusted with their factional behaviour and Starmer’s, in my opinion, dubious donors.
I don’t think there is a white knight or grouping coming to save us. Greed and corruption is inherent in the system and our only hope is that this vessel will not be big enough to sustain all of its wickedness.
I am sorry that if that is your opinion you’re wasting your time here
I am interested in those looking for solutions, not those from the left looking to blame others, as ever