Where are the sensible Brexiteers? Do they even exist?

One of the most perplexing things about Brexit is the absolute dearth of serious Brexit supporters, by which I mean people who want Brexit to happen, have articulate reasons for wanting Brexit to happen, and have an actually coherent strategy for achieving a lasting departure from the EU.

Anyone capable of the slightest nuance is capable of understanding that the EU is neither perfectly good, nor evil, but a bit of both.

For every good thing the EU has delivered like the working time directive, consumer protections, frictionless trade and travel, clean rivers and beaches, and equal rights legislation, there's something bad to counterbalance it, like the unaccountable European Central Bank, the imposition of ruinous austerity in Greece, attacks on Internet freedoms, and endless examples of absurd legislation aimed at stuff like outlawing the term "veggie burger".

Militants on either side will focus exclusively on the good or bad, while most sensible people will acknowledge both sides and try to weigh things up for themselves.

Once you have some understanding of the inner workings of the EU, you can't really blame anyone for adopting a Eurosceptic position. In fact I'd go further than that. Anyone who isn't sceptical about at least some of the EU's activities and institutions is basically an unthinking political cultist who would unquestioningly support the EU even if it resorted to truly evil policies like genocide, or ethnic cleansing.

However there is a huge chasm between being a Eurosceptic, and being a Brexiteer who supports Boris Johnson and the Tories' hard-right bodge job of a Brexit proposal.

Just look at the state of him.

When confronted with the fact that his renegotiated Brexit deal creates a border down the Irish sea to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, Johnson just lies that it won't.

When asked to explain why Scotland needs to be dragged all the way out of the EU against their will, while Northern Ireland get to keep frictionless trade with the continent, he hasn't got an answer.

When Johnson and the Tories are confronted about people's legitimate fears that a hard-right Brexit would lead to the break-up and mass privatisation of the NHS, they simply lie that they're not planning to privatise the NHS, even though that's exactly what they're doing right now, with more NHS services than ever being outsourced to private profiteers.

When Johnson is asked to explain why the protection of workers' rights were stripped out of his Withdrawal proposal, he just refuses to answer.

When asked to explain why the UK government is pursuing a version of Brexit that will trigger a recession, and annihilate our agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing industries, Johnson and his pals just witter platitudes like "will of the people".

Even if you are a Eurosceptic who thinks leaving the EU is best for Britain, how on earth could you end up trusting such an evasive liar to deliver it in such a rushed and shambolic way?

If you genuinely want Brexit to succeed, what's the logic in leaving the process in the hands of a dishonest charlatan who outright refuses to explain or acknowledge the obvious implications of his own hastily cobbled together plan?

If you want Britain to quit the EU, why would you want to do it in such an obviously chaotic, divisive and economically damaging manner that it seems doomed to fail from the outset, meaning it'll just end up getting eventually reversed?

And if Boris Johnson's hasty bodge-job does end up collapsing and getting reversed, surely we can see that Brexit would go down as one of the worst mistakes this country has ever made, meaning not a snowball's chance in hell of Brexit ever being resuscitated and done properly.

It's fully understandable that hard core Remainers and assorted other Brexit-sceptic people hate Boris Johnson's Brexit bodge, because it's an absolute mess of a proposal that would devastate the country if it's ever implemented.

But serious Brexit supporters should clearly be hating it even more, because Johnson's hasty bodge job Brexit is going to end up making Brexit look utterly stupid if it's ever implemented, make Brexiters look utterly stupid for endorsing it, and most likely end up being reversed and consigning the concept of a credible, sensibly-planned Brexit to the dustbin of history forever.

The fact that Johnson's ludicrous shambles of a Brexit proposal isn't attracting derision from concerned Brexiters suggests there's really not a very significant number of them who have actually thought through even the most obvious implications of what's happening.

Maybe 'sensible Brexiteers' are such a vanishingly small minority that they simply don't even register in the divisive, dishonest, and downright delusional screeching match our political discourse has descended into over the last few years?

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How the Tories used Comic Sans to trigger 'centrist Twitter' into spreading their propaganda for them

Regular readers will be all-too-familiar with my recurring complaint that mainstream media pundits, self-appointed 'centrists' (orthodox neoliberals), and the Twitter Blue tick brigade are shockingly inept at holding the Tory government to account, and the absurd fact that the font Comic Sans is trending on Twitter is the most compelling piece of proof yet.

When the Tories put out a Tweet written in Comic Sans, it should have been blindingly obvious to everyone that they were banking on a load of hate shares whining about the use of this unpopular font in order to subversively spread their utterly disingenuous "get Brexit done" propaganda trope all over social media.

Little enough has been done to combat this absurdly backwards idea that rushing approval of the Withdrawal Agreement phase of Brexit is akin to getting Brexit done and dusted, but now "centrists" are actually sharing it in order to complain about the font it's written in!

Anyone with the most basic grasp on the actual process understands that the Withdrawal Agreement is just step one in a multi-step process, and furthermore, that if this initial step is botched, it makes the following phases even more complex and time-consuming to deal with.

But instead of aiming their fire at the central Tory deceit that rushing the initial phase is akin to completing the whole process, 'centrist Twitter' and even Remain Ultras like Ian Dunt decided to actively amplify the deceit in order to take aim at the font it was presented in.

Yes some political commentators had the sense to see the ploy for what it was, with Matt Turner and Jim Waterson both identifying and describing the ploy to their followers.

Matt came from the successful independent media site Evolve Politics, and Jim was one of the tiny minority of journalists to clock the crucial role social media virality was playing during the 2017 General Election, so it's little surprise that they have the social media awareness to actually spot what's going on.

Shamefully plenty of other social media commentators uncritically amplified the Tory Brexit deceit in order to have a dig at them for using Comic Sans, including the usually reliable and fairly impartial Election Maps UK Twitter account. I don't recall them having ever retweeted partisan party political propaganda before, but the comic sans bait was enough to trigger them into amplifying disgracefully misleading Tory propaganda.

As far as I'm concerned one of the absolute basics of social media literacy is to not retweet or share political lies, and if it is absolutely necessary to quote something, to do it in the form of a screenshot with annotations in order to clearly critique the lie.

But this Comic Sans thing is even worse than the all-too-common practice of actively amplifying political lies in order to criticise them, because the chosen criticism is so wildly misplaced.

Dunt and his ilk didn't even mention the fact that the central claim in the Comic Sans Tory statement was a grotesque misrepresentation of reality, because they were too busy fussing over the presentation!

People often complain about presentation taking precedence over policy in the political sphere, but this debacle illustrates another problem. So many of our political commentators these days are so obsessed with presentation that they'll endlessly fixate on trivialities like the font a statement was written in, or whether Johnson bothered to sign the extension letter, rather than the crucial core details - the central claim is a grotesque misrepresentation of reality, and the fact that Johnson had said he'd "rather die in a ditch" than send the extension letter that he ended up sending.

These people are supposed to be holding the Tories to account, rather than falling for their tricks and misdirection tactics like a bunch of hopelessly gullible rubes.

And the most worrying thing is that a lot of these absolute dupes have positioned themselves as the champions of the Brexit-sceptic movement.

But if these people are so intensely credulous and easily played that they can be tricked into uncritically amplifying Tory pro-Brexit propaganda, just because it's written in a notoriously naff font, how the absolute hell are they actually going to win this 'another roll of the dice' referendum they seem to want so much?

Our nation's future teeters on the cliff edge of a disastrous Tory-administered Brexit meltdown, and the people who should be holding the government to account are too busy railing against a god-damned font to actually notice that they're actively amplifying the bullshit Tory propaganda that they should be trying to criticise and critique.

If these people really are our Brexit-saviours, we might as well accept that we're well and truly doomed hadn't we?

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People who say there's no difference between Labour and the Tories on Brexit are lying through their teeth

People keep misleadingly claiming that there's absolutely no difference between Labour and the Tories on Brexit, and even that there's nothing to indicate that a Labour Brexit would be any less harmful than a Tory one!

In reality there's an absolute mountain of evidence from the last 30 months of chaos that it couldn't possibly be anything like as bad as the Tories running Brexit exclusively for their own selfish party political interests.

I'm certainly not advocating a Labour Brexit in this article, in fact I feel they should move position at some point in the near future towards offering a "cancel Brexit" vs "back to square one and try again" referendum. However I'm so utterly sick of the despicable campaign of lies from disingenuous Remainer fanatics that I need to point out just how dishonest they're being when they pretend there's no difference between Labour and the Tories on Brexit. 

• Labour have repeatedly assured the public that they would never deliberately trigger a disastrous "no deal" meltdown like Theresa May keeps threatening, because they say it's "the worst possible deal for Britain". So at least this devastating nightmare scenario would be completely off the table under a Labour/progressive coalition government.

• The fact that even if Jeremy Corbyn wanted a "no deal" meltdown (which he repeatedly says he doesn't because it would be a "national disaster"), the vast majority of Labour MPs would never vote to allow it to happen anyway.

• The clear economic evidence that Labour's policy of Customs Union + Single Market would be the least damaging form of Brexit, and far less economically damaging than either a Tory "no deal" meltdown or Theresa May's shitty deal on the table.

• The fact that under a Labour/progressive coalition government the highly competent Keir Starmer would be in charge of the Brexit negotiations instead of a succession of absolute Tory numbskulls like David Davis and Dominic Raab. Even if you don't like Brexit surely it makes sense to have someone competent and intelligent in charge of Britain's side of the negotiations instead of a parade of utterly dense Tories?

• The fact that if Labour or a progressive coalition were put in the position of trying to negotiate Brexit (if a repeat EU referendum was lost by the Remainers for example), at least they'd do it with a good faith cooperative approach rather than repeating Theresa May's bad faith threats and tantrums, or idiotic Tory ministers mouthing off to the British press about how they plan to renege on the agreements they've just signed up to (as if they imagine that Europeans can't read English or browse the Internet)!

• Far from "enabling Tory Brexit" as many Remain extremists allege, Labour has repeatedly voted against the Tory government in practically every single Brexit related vote in parliament. Consider Labour's Amendment 58 to the EU Withdrawal Bill as just one of many examples of firm Labour opposition to shifty hard-right Tory Brexit scheming.

• The fact that Labour (and other opposition parties) voted against Theresa May's EU Withdrawal legislation because it did not protect workers' rights, environmental laws, food standards, consumer protections, and freedom from discrimination. A Labour/progressive coalition government would work to enshrine these rights and protections into UK law.

• The fact that whether you like him or hate him, Corbyn is an absolute stickler for doing things by the proper rules, meaning no efforts to ignore the rule of law and sideline parliament (as we've seen from the Tories over and again for the last 30 months).

• The fact that Labour (and other opposition parties) legally forced Theresa May to have the meaningful vote (you know, the one that she shamelessly postponed at the last minute because she knew she was going to lose it) without which she was planning to just rule by diktat. Labour and opposition parties actively want the executive to be accountable to parliament.

• The fact that Labour (and other opposition parties) succeeded in getting Theresa May's government declared in contempt of parliament for trying to hide Brexit documents (also consider their determination to stop the Tories hiding the Brexit impact assessments too). At least a Labour/progressive coalition would approach Brexit in an open and accountable manner.

• The fact that under Corbyn Labour policy is being handed back to the membership. If the Labour membership vote for a second referendum, or vote for assurances that Labour would remain in the Single Market, that's what Labour would do.

• The fact that the majority of Labour members are strongly opposed to a "no deal" Brexit, while a hefty (and rapidly increasing) proportion of Tory members are of the Brextremist blue-kip headbanger persuasion.

• The fact that Labour have been very careful not to rule out the option of another Brexit referendum. They're not promising one yet, but they're also not ruling one out either if the Tory Brexit shambles continues to get worse (which seems inevitable). Given that Theresa May's deal is dead in the water and a "no deal" meltdown is unthinkable, a referendum with the options of "cancel Brexit" or "back to square one" would seem like the most sensible approach from a strategic perspective.

• Labour's repeatedly stated but widely ignored six tests.

• And perhaps most importantly of all, the fact that a Labour/progressive coalition government would cancel Tory austerity and abandon their deliberately malicious economic strategy of loading the majority of the cost of economic crises onto the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. At least if there was a Brexit related economic downturn under a Labour/progressive coalition government they wouldn't maliciously load the burden onto poor people, sick and disabled people, jobless people, low-income workers, and children like the Tories doubtlessly would (bearing in mind the Brexit economic crisis would be much bigger under either of the Tory Brexit scenarios too).

Of course it's entirely fair to argue that "no Brexit" is still a better option than a Labour Brexit (an argument I'd actually agree with at this point), but anyone trying to argue that there's no evidence that a Tory Brexit would be worse than a Labour one is brazenly lying through their teeth for ideological purposes (making them no better than the Tory Brextremists who created this atrocious mess in the first place with their deliberate campaign of politically motivated lies).

It doesn't matter whether these people are lying through pure ignorance, through tribalist loyalty to the Lib-Dems, or just because they saw the Brextremists win the 2016 referendum with their outrageous campaign of lies so they're adopting the same tactics for themselves.

Outright lying degrades the political discourse and drives political apathy. And it's utterly unacceptable no matter who is doing it, or for what purpose.

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The hard-right Daily Express propaganda rag is openly intimidating British MPs

In November 2017 Theresa May's Tories and their bigoted DUP enablers forced a shambolic hard-right anti-democratic power grab called the EU Withdrawal Bill through the House of Commons.

The opposition parties attempted to make several amendments to limit this outrageous Tory power grab, but without the support of the vocal Tory so-called "mutineers" (who all, despite all of their fine words, actually voted in favour of it) they simply didn't have the numbers to constrain Theresa May's dictatorial and anti-democratic ambitions, so the bill scraped through to the next stage.

The House of Lords made 15 amendments to the bill and sent it back to the House of Commons.

Not all of the Lords' amendments are sensible, but most of them are (see image).

Whether we agree with the amendments or not (I disagree with amendment 110A for example, but very strongly support amendment 11) debating proposed amendments to government legislation is clearly a perfectly normal function of our sovereign parliament.

One of the big problems is that Theresa May and the Tories have made an absolute mockery of parliament by allocating just 12 hours to debate and vote on the 15 amendments (a paltry 48 minutes per amendment).

Then there's the fact that the right-wing propaganda barons are absolutely terrified that the opposition parties and some of the so-called "mutineer" Tory MPs will inflict a string of humiliating defeats on Theresa May and the hard-right Brextremist faction who control her every move.

None of the amendments are about stopping Brexit. They're all about constraining the Brextremists' most anti-democratic and dictatorial urges, limiting the social and economic damage the hard-right Tory Brextremists can do through Brexit, and ensuring that the Brexit process in conducted in a democratic manner.

This reality doesn't suit the Brextremist propagandists who work for hard-right propaganda rags like the Daily Express though, so they've simply warped reality to pretend that the parliamentary debate over the 15 House of Lords Amendment is some kind of cynical plot to derail Brexit and undermine "the will of the people".

What's more is the way they're predicting perilous consequences for any MP who dares to support the efforts to constrain Theresa May's dictatorial and anti-democratic EU Withdrawal legislation.

The Express hacks are well aware that the Labour MP Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street by an extreme-right terrorist just two years ago.

They're also well aware that just a few months ago another jailed extreme-right terrorist admitted that he'd plotted to assassinate Jeremy Corbyn before carrying out a murderous attack against random Muslims at Finsbury Park instead.

They're also well aware of the tidal waves of extreme-right abuse and death threats triggered by previous right-wing headlines attacking judges ("Enemies of the people") and politicians ("Mutineers", "Proud of yourselves").

These vile hard-right hacks know exactly what they're doing when they print massive front page headlines threatening harmful consequences to politicians who refuse to bow down to Theresa May and the hard-right Brextremist faction who control her every move.

They know that what they're doing is nothing short of intimidation.

If opposition MPs and Tory "mutineers" are hit with yet another wave of abuse and death threats after the publication of this intimidatory front page, these irresponsible right-wing hacks should be held accountable.

And if the worst comes to the worst and another MP is physically assaulted or even killed for daring to defy the tyrannical machinations of Theresa May and the Brextremists, the role of the right-wing press in repeatedly whipping up these tides of hard-right hatred must be investigated.

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Why is a supposedly pro-Labour Twitter group sharing George Osborne's anti-Labour propaganda?

The #FBPE hashtag on Twitter started off as a pro-EU movement on the continent, but it's clearly morphed into a radical anti-Corbyn, anti-Labour rallying cry in the UK.

People who use the #FBPE hashtag repeatedly claim to be opposing Brexit, but a scroll through the latest #FBPE hashtags at any time usually reveals hardly any Tweets criticising Theresa May, but dozens of comments attacking Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, despite the fact that Labour actually voted against Theresa May's hard-right and profoundly anti-democratic EU Withdrawal Bill.

Why would anyone who opposes Brexit spend more time attacking the party in opposition that is at least trying to moderate the shambolic hard-right Brexit that Theresa May is pushing, rather than criticising the Tories who are actually in power and pushing this extremist interpretation of the Brexit vote?

There seem to be three main camps within the anti-Corbyn #FBPE campaign.

• The most obvious are the ever-cynical Lib-Dems, who see creating divisions within Labour as their best chance of scratching together a few extra votes in the vain hope that people will have forgotten how their wilful collusion with ruinous Tory austerity dogma and their unprecedented wage repression policies created the wave of public anger that made Brexit possible in the first place.

• Another clear component of the #FBPE campaign are the Tory concern trolls, who pretend to be disillusioned Labour supporters abandoning the Labour Party over their Brexit stance in order to trick others into doing the same. To anyone with a grain of sense these concern trolls are easy to spot, but there doesn't seem to be much sense in the #FBPE community given the extraordinary amounts of likes and retweets some of these right-wing wreckers keep getting.

• Possibly the largest component of the anti-Corbyn #FBPE mob are the politically clueless. They're not blaming the opposition rather than the government and spreading blatant lies about Labour on purpose. They're just genuinely clueless people who are shockingly naive about the reality of the situation. They simply don't care that Labour voted against the Tories' anti-democratic EU Withdrawal Bill, and they simply don't care that the "sore loser" cancel Brexit position they want Labour to adopt would render Labour totally unelectable (like the Lib-Dems at the 2017 General Election) and actually end up being a massive gift to the Tory Brextremists who are the ones who are actually imposing Brexit!

In this article I'm going to look at one extraordinary Tweet from a group calling itself Labour Against Brexit to illustrate the shockingly naivety that abounds in this third #FBPE demographic of politically clueless people.

The first thing to note about this extraordinary Tweet is that it legitimises hard-right Tory austerity dogma by presenting it as an unavoidable consequence of any post-Brexit economic crisis.

It doesn't matter a jot to these people that Tory austerity dogma has spectacularly failed over the last eight years, they just see the threat of more of it as convenient propaganda to fear-monger with.

The reality of the situation is that the pre-Corbyn incarnation of Labour made Brexit possible in 2015 with their strategically inept failure to oppose ruinous Tory austerity dogma head on.

Had Labour harnessed the public anger at the disastrous consequences of Tory austerity dogma and their unprecedented campaign of wage repression, they could have won the 2015 General Election. But instead they squandered it with their austerity-lite strategy, and thus allowed UKIP and the hard-right fringe of the Tory party to co-opt the public anger at the consequences of hard-right economics by blaming the consequences of Tory right-wing extremism on immigrants and the EU instead.

Despite losing an easily winnable election as a consequence of the woeful austerity-lite strategy devised by the likes of Ed Balls and Chris Leslie, and allowing the hard-right to co-opt public anger against austerity in order to drive the Brexit vote, it's clear that there are many within the Labour Party who still actually believe in austerity dogma!

Another thing to note about this extraordinary Tweet is the source material. The current editor of the Evening Standard is George Osborne, the former Tory Chancellor who was the man responsible for the implementation of austerity dogma for six ruinous years!

So here you have a man who was clearly and undeniably responsible for six years of economically devastating hard-right austerity dogma, who is now using his propaganda rag to pin the blame for future Tory austerity onto Labour!

This is the man who tried to dress austerity dogma up as a good thing for six ruinous years now using his propaganda rag to attack Labour by trying to hold them responsible for Tory Brexit, the Tory post-Brexit meltdown, and any future Tory decision to use this meltdown as an excuse to impose even more of his ruinous hard-right austerity dogma!

And them when you look at who the author of the piece is, it's none other than Chris Leslie, one of the clueless Labour right-wingers in the 2015 Labour shadow cabinet who gave George Osborne such an easy ride by meekly imitating his hard-right austerity dogma, rather than confronting it head on.

After chucking the 2015 General Election with their inept austerity-lite strategy Chris Leslie and his ilk should have resigned in shame, but instead here he is scrawling anti-Labour pro-austerity propaganda in George Osborne's propaganda rag for the Tories to use as a hard-right wedge strategy to attack the current Labour leadership with!

The worst thing isn't that pro-austerity right-wingers are colluding to use such a ridiculously cynical piece of concern trolling to attack the current anti-austerity Labour leadership (such dishonest and manipulative propaganda is bread and butter to the Tories and the ever duplicitous Labour right), it's that this brazen propaganda has actually been picked up and recycled by a supposedly pro-Labour group!

The Evening Standard article is clearly hard-right concern trolling, because the editor who commissioned it is Mr Austerity Dogma himself, and the author is one of the hard-right pro-austerity Berserkers still embedded within the Labour Party.

Yet the shockingly clueless people behind the Labour Against Brexit page have uncritically lapped it up and Tweeted it out to their followers as if it's a genuine critique of Labour's Brexit stance, rather than a deliberate right-wing wedge strategy designed to split the Labour Party, present ideological austerity as an unquestionable response to economic crises, and allow the Tories to carry on ruling in the interests of their mega-rich donors with as little opposition as possible.

It would obviously not be Labour's fault if the Tory Brextremists get their way and trigger an economic meltdown with their extremist version of Brexit, then the Tory government uses this self-made crisis as an excuse to impose even more destructive hard-right austerity dogma on the British economy.

However it is increasingly difficult to see how Labour could ever govern efficiently when the party is infested by people who are ideologically wedded to the hard-right theory that more austerity dogma is the only conceivable response to an economic crisis, and so gullible that they can't even spot right-wing divide and conquer concern trolling tactics, even when it's been published in a newspaper edited by the former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer!

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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Don't be naive enough to judge Anna Soubry by her words rather than her actions

If you were naive enough to judge so-called "mutineer" Tory MPs like Anna Soubry by their words rather than their actions, you would end up thinking that they're leading the fight against a ruinous hard-right Brexit, rather than actually enabling it.

Take her "stand up to wreckers" tweet. Those unfamiliar with Soubry's empty posturing might actually think that she's actually arguing against the likes of Boris Johnson, David Davis, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Gove running the Tory party and the nation.

The reality is completely different. Soubry knows that Theresa May such a weak leader she simply can't stand up to the hard-right Brextremist fringe of the Tory party.

Soubry knows that Theresa May has appointed Brextremists to key positions throughout her government, and she knows that May's future as Prime Minister is hanging by a thread because as soon as the secretive cabal of Brextremist Tory MPs led by Jacob Rees-Mogg turns on her, she's finished.

Soubry knows that Theresa May's European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is an effort to use Brexit as a Trojan Horse to enable a hard-right attack on parliamentary sovereignty, workers' rights, consumer protections, devolved parliaments, food standards, democratic accountability, and pretty much everything that has impeded the fanatical fringe of the Tory party from turning the UK into a horrible hard-right dystopia.

She knows that the EU Withdrawal Bill is a shameless and shambolic hard-right power grab because she's done an awful lot of grandstanding against it during the legislative process.

But then when it came to the crunch she helped to ensure that it passed to the next phase by actually voting in favour of it!

Anna Soubry and the rest of the so-called "mutineer" Tory MPs had the chance to defeat this outrageous piece of legislation by siding with Labour and the other opposition parties to oppose it, but she actually voted in favour of it.

The reason she voted in favour of this hard-right power grab is simple: She knew that a defeat on such a high profile piece of legislation would have caused the end of Theresa May and a massive succession problem for the Tory party, so she decided to put the narrow party political interests of the Conservative party above the welfare of the nation.

In many ways grandstanders like Anna Soubry are the worst. They're actually worse than the Tory Brextremists because at least the Brextremists are driven to inflict such harm on the nation because of their hard-right ideology.

Soubry has no such excuse. She knows how bad it is. She keeps saying how bad it is. She wins plaudits for saying how bad it is. She garners sympathy when Theresa May's Blue-kip hate mob send her death threats for saying how bad it is. But when it comes to the crunch and she has the opportunity to actually stop it, she actually votes in favour of it!

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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The Tory EU Withdrawal bill is such a shambolic power grab Labour had to vote against it

Last night 243 Labour MPs voted against the Tory government's Brexit bill.

The Tories tried to make as much capital out of this vote as possible by whipping up their Brextremist followers into a rage with outright lies that Labour were "blocking the delivery of a smooth Brexit", which are a tad difficult to accept at face value given that the Tories and their bigoted DUP backers actually won the vote!

In reality the Labour Party (and other opposition parties) tried to do everything in their power to amend the Tories' basket case European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and when virtually all of these amendments were defeated by the Tories and the DUP extremists they bribed into supporting them, Labour had no choice but to vote against this cynical and shambolic power grab the Tories have cobbled together under the guise of leaving the EU.

It's vital to understand that Labour and the opposition parties tried really hard to improve the EU Withdrawal bill, but the Tories and the DUP fanatics simply scrapped all the changes.

Here are just a few of the amendments that the Tories refused to make to their shambolic legislation:

• Labour tried to ensure that no EU derived consumer protections, environmental standards, and workers' rights are scrapped during the process of quitting the EU. The Tories scrapped that amendment.

• The Green Party tried to ensure that EU derived animal rights are not scrapped during the process of quitting the EU. The Tories scrapped that amendment.

• The SNP and other opposition parties tried to ensure that the Tories couldn't use the extensive law-rewriting powers they were giving themselves to revoke powers from the devolved parliaments (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). The Tories scrapped that amendment.

• Labour tried to stop the Tories from using the EU Withdrawal Bill to reserve all repatriated powers directly to Westminster, rather than to the devolved parliaments.  The Tories scrapped that amendment.

• Labour tried to ensure that the Tory government carry out economic impact assessments on whatever Brexit scenario they decide on (a Brexit agreement or a "no deal" flounce) before parliament votes on whether to go ahead with it. The Tories scrapped that amendment.

In light of this just ask yourself why the Tories scrapped all these amendments to protect human rights, environmental laws, consumer protections, animal rights, the integrity of the devolved parliaments, and to ensure the government carries out economic impact assessments before they plough ahead with whatever they decide to do?

If they have no intention of using Brexit as a Trojan horse to attack all of these rights, protections, and laws - then why did they scrap the amendments that would have prevented them from doing so?

If they have no intention of using Brexit as an excuse to attack and undermine the powers of the devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland - then why did they scrap the amendments that would have prevented them from doing so?

And if they have no intention of ploughing ahead with a shambolic "let's make it up as we go along" hard-right Brexit - then why did they scrap the amendments that would have made them at least conduct economic impact assessments on the final Brexit situation they decide on before moving to enact it?

Labour and the other opposition parties tried to co-operate and improve the Tory Brexit legislation, but the Tories and the DUP lackeys they bribed into supporting them just trashed all the amendments.

This Tory intransigence left Labour with no choice but to vote against the shambolic legislative mess the Tories have put forward.

When historians look back at this time, nobody will blame Labour for at least trying to amend the Tory Brexit legislation to make it fit for purpose.

However now that the Tories have demonstrated their intention to use Brexit as an excuse to attack our rights, scrap our consumer protections, erode our environmental laws, undermine our devolved parliaments, and do so in a reckless make it up as we go along manner with no economic impact assessments to justify their actions, nobody (aside from the 'we want Brexit at any cost' extremists) could possibly argue that Labour were wrong to vote against the EU Withdrawal Bill.

The Labour Brexit minister explaining why the Tory EU Withdrawal bill is such a shambles Labour had to vote against it.
pic.twitter.com/IOzGlR2Fvx

— Tom (AAV) (@Angry_Voice) January 18, 2018

The next stage for the EU Withdrawal Bill will be the unelected House of Lords, which will make an interesting spectacle as a bunch of unelected peers attempt to amend this absolute shambles of a Tory power grab to make the bill itself more democratic, and the Tory govenrment more accountable for their actions.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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Why do the BBC rate Michael Gove and the Guido Fawkes blog as more reliable sources than the British Medical Journal?

In November 2017 the widely respected British medical Journal published a study suggesting that Tory austerity dogma is linked to 120,000 excess deaths since 2010.

The BBC quashed any coverage of this shocking study on the advice of a shadowy advisory group that is part-funded by organisations like the Daily Mail and the UK government themselves. Apparently the British medical Journal and the academics who worked on the study were not reliable enough to warrant any coverage whatever.

Fast forward one week and the BBC joined various other outlets in championing an absolute sham of an article from the Guido Fawkes blog accusing other websites of being "downmarket trash clickbait" in an attempt to create a furore over fake news.

It is absolutely indisputable that Tory MPs voted to defeat an amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill designed to ensure that the UK government recognises animal sentience after Brexit. Here's a link to the vote on Hansard. We can all see from the public record that the Tories voted against the amendment to recognise animal sentience, making sure it lost by 313 votes to 295.

Tory MPs such as the current Environment Minister Michael Gove (the 3rd Tory Environment Minister in the space of two years!) gave assurances that the Tories would one day legislate to recognise animal sentience, but surely such promises from Brexiteers like Michael Gove are only as believable as their outright lies about using Brexit to give £350 million a week to the NHS?

Claiming that they have no intention of scrapping the thing whilst simultaneously voting against amendments to prevent them from scrapping the thing is exactly the same Tory trick used to justify voting against amendment 58 to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill which sought to stop them from using Brexit as an excuse to revoke workers' rights, equality legislation, environmental protections, workplace safety rules, and consumer protections.

Anyone with a grain of sense should be able to see that any government with an honest commitment to recognising animal sentience, or protecting our EU derived rights could have no real objection to supporting amendments designed to ensure that they can't just scrap these things further down the line.

The crux of the Guido Fawkes article was that the horrified public reaction to the Tory scuppering of the animal sentience amendment was "fake news" because we're simply expected to believe Michael Gove's subsequent statement that "this government will ensure that any necessary changes required to UK law are made in a rigorous and comprehensive way to ensure animal sentience is recognised after we leave the EU"

How naive would you have to be to believe that this statement would have been made without all the negative publicity and petitions?

And how naive would you have to judge Michael "350 million for the NHS" Gove on his words, whilst completely ignoring his actual actions in colluding with his Tory colleagues to vote down an amendment which would have prevented him (or any future Tory Environment Secretary) from backtracking on that commitment.

So the Guido Fawkes article is accusing everyone who shared articles and petitions criticising the Tory vote against the animal sentience amendment of spreading "fake news" because ... well ... we're supposed to just believe politicians like Michael Gove are not lying to us!

This Guido article clearly uses the term "fake news" in the same way Donald Trump uses it. Not to describe news that is demonstrably fake, but as a pejorative term aimed at discrediting news that they don't like.

In a way the Guido Fawkes article is an example of fake "fake news" news.

But that didn't stop the BBC from jumping on the bandwagon and promoting the narrative that the uproar about animal sentience is "fake news" because everyone is suddenly supposed to take Michael Gove at his word now, instead of judging him by his actual actions.

Incredibly the BBC gave Michael Gove (the man who told us that Britain "has had enough of experts") a platform to whine that "there is an unhappy tendency now for people to believe that the raw and authentic voice of what's shared on social media is more reliable than what is said in Hansard or on the BBC".

One minute he wants the public to disregard experts, analysis and evidence when it suits his Brexiteering agenda, then the next he's crying that people don't believe his claims that his words have more weight than his actions!

The way that the central argument from this Guido Fawkes fake "fake news" news narrative was hastily turned into BBC headlines, while an academic study from the British Medical Journal was deemed unfit for coverage just goes to show how standards of journalism and impartiality at the BBC have degenerated:

A study conducted by reputable academics from some of Britain's top universities and published in the British Medical Journal was deliberately buried in order to keep it out of the public consciousness as much as possible because it would reflect very badly on the government, and none of the academics involved were invited onto the BBC to discuss the implications of their study.

Yet some cobbled-together nonsense labelling all social media criticism of the government as "fake news" because we're all suddenly supposed to take lying Brexiteers like Michael Gove at their word now is deemed worthy of BBC news coverage because it fits with the mainstream media groupthink that independent media and social networks are significant threats to their ability to control public perceptions in the way that they did so brazenly when they decided to not bother reporting on the 120,000 excess deaths scandal.

Is it any wonder that more and more people are turning to independent media for their news when the BBC treat the likes of Michael Gove and the Guido Fawkes blog as more reputable sources than the British Medical Journal, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and University College London?

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