Liz Webster: After a decade of Brexit propaganda...
š After a decade of Brexit propaganda, The Sun has finally published an EU headline that makes me genuinely cheerful. āAndy Burnham opens door to ripping up Labourās Brexit red lines.ā Never thought Iād say this but frame that front page. If even The Sun can see where this is heading, the Brexit omertĆ really is over. Game on.Liz Webster: If @jreynoldsMP genuinely believes...
If @jreynoldsMP genuinely believes Britain must preserve Brexitās red lines, reject the customs union and stop even discussing rejoining the EU, perhaps he is in the wrong party. Reform already exists to defend Farageās failed Brexit settlement. Labourās job is to repair the country not protect Nigel Farageās legacy.Liz Webster: Now it is being said out loud...
šØ Now it is being said out loud: call a snap election and make it a āreverse 2019ā. Former Foreign Office adviser @b_judah says @andyburnham should seek a mandate with rejoining the EU as Britainās ultimate objective, using the single market and customs union as the first stage. His warning is brutal: Burnhamās popularity may be peaking. A punishing Budget, difficult winter and worsening global instability lie ahead. Delay Europe until his authority has drained away and he repeats Starmerās fatal mistake. Boris Johnson won an 80-seat majority promising to āGet Brexit Doneā. Burnham could unite Britainās pro-European majority by promising to repair the damage and take us home. Despite todayās denials, the case for an early Brexit election is now being made openly. Game on.Liz Webster: This is leadership...
This is leadership. @SadiqKhan is right: Labour must start making the case to rejoin the EU now and seek a democratic mandate at the next election. Brexit has weakened our economy, food and energy security and young peopleās futures. Andy Burnham must listen.Liz Webster: Empty supermarket shelves...
šØ Empty supermarket shelves are inevitable and thatās why govt has told people to stockpile. And Brexit is to blame. Britainās food and drink trade deficit has soared beyond Ā£21 BILLION š„ the largest since 2000. Food and drink export volumes fell 11.7% in the first half of this year, while imports remained close to record levels. And this year British farmers have endured flooding, drought, falling yields and soaring fertiliser, fuel and other input costs. We are competing against growing volumes of imported food while fighting one another for a finite SFI budget thatās hotter than Glastonbury tickets. This is how you hollow out domestic productive capacity. You donāt wake up one morning and discover Britain has lost its ability to feed itself. It happens gradually: farms become unviable, processors close, imports rise and domestic production falls. And for years the answer has been: donāt worry, we can import it. Import what? From whom? At what price? In a world of war, climate shocks and increasingly protectionist trade, deliberately becoming more dependent on other countries for food isnāt resilience. Government says food security is national security @andyburnham @angelaeagle Then start treating the businesses producing our food as part of Britainās critical national infrastructure!Liz Webster: And there it is...
ā¼ļø And there it is. Grifting the night away begins. Tommy Robinson acknowledges just how serious Danny Tommoās legal position could be: one of the offences being investigated carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. But notice the immediate reframing. šDamaging a vessel with an emergency responder aboard becomes āactivismā. šA police investigation becomes an attempt to āstop Dannyā. šAnd before heās even been charged, the institutions enforcing the law become āparasitesā. This is precisely why private political groups cannot appoint themselves to enforce immigration law in the English Channel. š Activism doesnāt put you above the law.Liz Webster: Yet your post has fuck all...
Yet your post has fuck all to do with rebutting the facts. Itās just a Brexit defender shouting āleft-wing shillā because you cannot defend what Brexit has done to farming. And Iāve fought the family farm tax from the streets to the courts. What have you done - apart from swear at women online?Liz Webster: Burnham tried to appease Brexit...
šØ Burnham tried to appease Brexit and Brexit punished him for it. The Times reveals an extraordinary sequence of events. The EU had reportedly been prepared to exempt Britain from its āMade in Europeā rules, protecting our deeply integrated car industry and supply chains. But @andyburnham worried that Starmerās reciprocal youth-mobility agreement would not pass the āMakerfield testā in his Leave voting constituency and sought to reopen it. Brussels responded by withdrawing the British exemption. So an attempt to appease Red Wall Brexit sentiment made the reset deteriorate, delayed the UKāEU summit and left British manufacturing facing an even greater threat. Now Burnham is refusing to rule out putting EU membership in Labourās next manifesto. By trying to move one step away from Europe, he may have forced himself to move two steps closer. There is a powerful political journey here, if Burnham tells it honestly: Britain cannot demand European privileges while refusing reciprocity. We cannot protect British jobs through permanent Brexit red lines. And governing by the fears of one Leave-voting constituency cannot take precedence over the national interest. The āMakerfield testā has collided with economic reality. Reality won šLiz Webster: The far right claiming that...
The far right claiming that āthe whole of Europe is moving rightā is not quite the scare tactic they think it is. If true, it demolishes their own case that the EU is some alien left-wing superstate from which Britain must remain isolated. And when Sweden votes left, they claim the votes of Swedish citizens with immigrant backgrounds somehow count less. Every citizenās vote carries equal weight. That is democracy. Discounting peopleās votes because of their ancestry is ethnic nationalism.Liz Webster: Reports of an early election...
šØ Reports of an early election are speculation based on unnamed sources. Can Labour afford to pay for an early election? But @andyburnham faces a real dilemma: go early under existing rules, or wait while Reform transforms the mega private wealth into national infrastructure.Liz Webster: Jim Ratcliffe...
ā¼ļø Jim Ratcliffe: š¹ Backed Brexit š¹ Moved his tax residence to Monaco š¹ Abandoned plans to build the British Grenadier in Wales and moved production to France š¹ Now lectures Britain from Denmark about why the country is on the slide And who does he blame? Immigrants and people on benefits. The billionaires who helped hollow Britain out always point down, never at Brexit, tax flight, chronic underinvestment or their own decisions. *Toughness* seems to mean somebody poorer paying the price.Liz Webster: Every Brexit attempt to reclaim British...
Every Brexit attempt to reclaim British sovereignty has ended by diminishing it. We left the European institutions through which Britain exercised real power, only to become more dependent on American technology, capital, defence and political goodwill. Sovereignty without scale is merely vulnerability dressed up in a Union Jack.Liz Webster: Steady on...
šØ Steady on. Reform cannot simply announce that it is taking the Government to the Supreme Courtā¼ļø First it needs a legally arguable claim and permission for judicial review. It would then need to progress through the courts and obtain permission to appeal. The Supreme Court only considers arguable points of law of general public importance. And if Parliament passes clear primary legislation, the courts generally cannot strike it down. There is no guarantee of a judicial review, let alone a Supreme Court showdown. This is political theatre, not legal analysis.Liz Webster: Dan Hodges says āI do think...
šØ Dan Hodges says āI do think we are coming to the end of Nigel Farageās leadership of Reform.ā And Julia HB doesnāt even push back. He thinks sleaze is now becoming associated with Reform in the public mind and the scandals are cutting through. This is correct. One controversy can be dismissed as a hit job. Two can be blamed on the establishment. But eventually separate stories begin to form a pattern in votersā minds.Liz Webster: Well, this escalated quickly...
šØ Well, this escalated quickly. On Sunday Nigel Farage told Laura Kuenssberg: āWe live in a complainant society.ā He claimed the repeated scrutiny of Reformās finances was a deliberate attempt to āsully the name of the partyā. Three days later, the Metropolitan Police have announced an investigation into allegations that donations to Reform UK may have broken electoral law. Reform denies the allegations and an investigation is not a finding of guilt. But this is precisely why political parties are scrutinised. Democracy requires elections AND accountability. Being asked where the money came from and whether electoral law was followed isnāt persecution. Itās democracy doing its job šLiz Webster: This is how political violence becomes...
ā¼ļøšØ This is how political violence becomes normalised. Climate activists interrupted Nigel Farageās Reform conference speech to question him about an alleged Ā£5 million gift from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne. Members of the crowd dragged, punched and kicked them. One activist was struck with a crutch; another had her hair pulled out. š„ How did Reformās leading figures respond? Lee Anderson joked about holding a whip-round to replace the attackerās walking stick. Robert Jenrick said protesters ātake their chancesā. Farage dismissed criticism of the violence as āutter nonsenseā. First, opponents are branded āfar-leftā enemies, then attacking them is excused. Next, it becomes something politicians joke about. Eventually, intimidation becomes part of the movementās culture. Most revealingly, the crowd used violence to shield a powerful politician from questions about billionaire money. The violence was not separate from the issue, it demonstrated it: concentrated wealth, political power and mob intimidation combining to silence democratic scrutiny. This is authoritarianism learning to walk.Liz Webster: This is a disgracefully evasive...
ā¼ļø This is a disgracefully evasive and weak answer from @andyburnham @amcarmichaelMP asked whether Britain would protect consumers and farmers from Brazilian beef the EU is banning over inadequate antimicrobial assurances. Burnham deflected to public procurement. Schools buying British beef will not stop rejected Brazilian meat entering supermarkets, restaurants and processed foods. This is a public-health and food-standards issue not a procurement exercise. Britain must mirror the EU suspension immediately. We cannot become the dumping ground for meat our nearest market refuses to accept. Two people are dead and 474 have contracted Salmonella in outbreaks strongly associated with imported eggs served in cafĆ©s, restaurants and takeaways. Public procurement does not protect anyone eating outside a school or hospital. It neither stops rejected imports entering Britain nor provides traceability once they disappear into catering and processed food. Food safety requires prevention, not excuses after people become ill.Liz Webster: This interview tells me that...
This interview tells me that: Brexit failed comprehensively. The Conservatives must become pro-European again, but Britain must reach that conclusion without requiring Brexitās architects to admit what they did. That is Seldonās reconciliation project. He seems to understand where Britain must go, but possibly fears that telling the full truth about how it got here will make the journey impossible. But the risk is that appeasement preserves the original myths, allowing the manipulation to continue. Voldemort survives.Liz Webster: A private project underwritten...
A private project underwritten by up to Ā£71 million of public money, while the taxpayer receives only a minority stake and rights to part of the concentrate, not control of the company or the value chain. Britain still lacks the refinery needed to turn that concentrate into usable tungsten. Public money absorbs the risk; private shareholders retain control and capture the gains. That is not industrial sovereignty @andyburnham š it is corporate welfare dressed up as national security.Liz Webster: Logistics UK estimates Brexit...
Logistics UK estimates Brexit cost UK £11.7bn a year in lost exports, goods exports by tonnage are 20.7% below 2016, EU export volumes are down 15.9%. And European Movement UK survey finds 98.2% of the businesses it surveyed advocate returning to the Single Market. @andyburnham ffs sort this outLiz Webster: BRITAIN IS LOSING THE CAPACITY...
šØ BRITAIN IS LOSING THE CAPACITY TO PRODUCE This isnāt just happening in farming. The Times reports that smaller housebuilders are now struggling to sell even one new home a month. In 1980s small and medium-sized builders produced around 40% of Britainās new homes. š„ Today itās less than 10%. And the industry is warning: āWe risk losing the very capacity that the governmentās targets depend on.ā Sound familiar? Farmers are warning they may not have the cash to plant next yearās crops or replace livestock. Housebuilders are stopping buying land, scaling back and conserving cash. 𤨠Yet government wants more homes AND greater food security. This is Britainās underlying economic disease. We keep squeezing the people who actually produce things until production becomes unviable, then announce targets demanding they produce more. Houses. Food. Energy. Manufacturing. Once productive capacity disappears, it takes years to rebuild. Britain doesnāt just need growth. It needs to start producing things again.Liz Webster: People have been brainwashed...
People have been brainwashed via their fears š especially of migrants. Fear is one of the most powerful tools in politics. Keep telling people that migrants are the threat to their jobs, homes, culture, safety and country and eventually every political failure can be viewed through that lens. There is neuroscience behind why threat-based messaging works. Sustained stress and perceived threat can narrow attention and impair the flexible, deliberative thinking needed to weigh complicated evidence. And while everyone is looking at the migrant? They arenāt looking at who owns the wealth, why their wages stagnated, why housing wasnāt built, why public services were cut, or why Britain voluntarily erected barriers with its largest trading partner. Thatās the political power of fear: Give people a visible enemy and they may stop looking for the actual causes of their insecurity.Liz Webster: We didnāt have to worry about food...
šØ We didnāt have to worry about food safety in the same way when we were in the EU. Our food was traded within a common regulatory system with shared rules on food safety, traceability and production standards. Now British consumers can buy British Lion eggs in the supermarket but eat breakfast in a hotel, a cake in a cafĆ© or a meal in a restaurant and have no idea where the eggs came from or how the hens were kept. Brexit was sold as giving us higher standards and cheaper food. Instead weāre importing increasing quantities of eggs produced to standards British farmers wouldnāt be allowed to use while British consumers frequently arenāt even told. We lost control.Liz Webster: One dead...
šØ One dead. Hundreds sick. 38% hospitalised. UKHSA is investigating a Salmonella outbreak involving 207 confirmed cases which may be linked to imported eggs. The Food Standards Agency says: āThere is no evidence that UK-produced eggs are affected.ā And where were the suspected imported eggs mainly being used? Restaurants, cafĆ©s and catering establishments. The Brexit promise to escape EU regulations always meant dangerously lower food standards. Traceability and border controls protect the public. Consumers cannot Buy British when they arenāt even told the origin of ingredients used in the food they are served. Brexit Britain has weaker import controls and we have pursued cheaper global food imports. This is destroying food security and putting lives at risk. Food security means food safety too. We should be strengthening British food production and demanding robust equivalence and verification from imports, not treating food regulation as an inconvenience to trade.Liz Webster: So much for Brexit taking back control...
So much for Brexit taking back control ā¼ļø Donald Trump is threatening Britain with 100% tariffs unless our government changes a British tax on American Big Tech. His trade representative says the threat is not a bluff. This is what Brexit fundamentally mis-sold about sovereignty. Sovereignty isnāt merely possessing the legal right to make your own decisions. Itās possessing enough power to defend those decisions when a much larger country tells you to change them. Inside the EU, Britain helped wield the economic power of a market of 450 million people. Outside it, we negotiate with America alone. Brexit gave away the power and protection that made us safe - we left the herd and now get picked off by big predators.Liz Webster: Dear Nobodiesā¦
āDear Nobodiesā¦ā š Farage wanted a coronation. Instead, the ānobodiesā became the story but the winner couldnāt even bring himself to stand alongside them at the count. British democracy has a wonderful habit of puncturing pomposity.Liz Webster: Well this is interesting...
šØ Well this is interesting. Nigel Farage claims he wonāt attend the Clacton count because of a threat. š Police: we havenāt advised candidates not to attend. Farage himself: āI am damned if I am going to stand on a stage⦠and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies.ā So which is it? A security decision ā¦.. or Nigel Farage simply considers the other candidates beneath him? Some champion of the little people.Liz Webster: Today I spoke to @NickFerrariLBC about the dire...
š Today I spoke to @NickFerrariLBC about the dire situation facing Britainās food supply. For years Iāve warned that the post-Brexit strategy of allowing domestic food production to decline while assuming we can simply buy what we need on world markets is reckless. With extreme weather devastating harvests here and overseas, and wars disrupting global supply chains, that gamble is unravelling. I didnāt expect to be proved right quite so soon. Food is national security. Britain needs a food production plan.Liz Webster: Britain needs a public inquiry...
š Britain needs a public inquiry into foreign interference in our democracy. Not an inquiry designed to overturn Brexit or prove a predetermined theory. An inquiry that follows the evidence wherever it leads. Who funded whom? Who had access to whom? Who ultimately owned the money? What influence operations took place? What did our intelligence services and governments know? And why did Britain allow itself to become a haven for kleptocratic wealth? If there was no material foreign interference, an inquiry can establish that. If there was, the British public has a right to know. Democracy cannot mean ātake back controlā while refusing to establish who was trying to exert control over us.Liz Webster: This is profoundly alarming...
This is profoundly alarming! Transparency doesnāt mean ātrust us, weāve checked ourselves.ā It means giving the public, journalists and civil society enough information to check for themselves. At a time when trust in politics is already dangerously low, Parliament should be increasing scrutiny of money, interests and influence not making scrutiny harder. Democracy isnāt just the right to vote for the people who exercise power. Itās the right to see who is influencing them once they have it. Accountability that can only be performed by the person being held accountable isnāt accountability.Liz Webster: Most of Labour MPs backed Burnham...
Most of Labour MPs backed Burnham. They represent millions of voters. Starmer didnāt challenge @andyburnham bc he knew he faced humiliating defeat.Liz Webster: This explains Britainās investment problem...
š© This explains Britainās investment problem. Brexit didnāt just create trade barriers. It structurally weakened sterling and increased currency volatility. For businesses considering investing billions in Britain, that means more expensive imported equipment and components, higher hedging costs and greater uncertainty over future returns. Add the barriers to our largest market and years of regulatory uncertainty and ask the obvious question: Why would an international company choose Britain over an EU location offering frictionless access to a market of 450 million people? Investment follows opportunity, scale and stability. Brexit diminished all three.Liz Webster: Since Brexit we lost control...
Since Brexit we lost control of our borders for people and for foods/goods.Read more