Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

Jun 21, 2022 | Bylines, News

The weaponisation of right-wing insults has been going on for some time as part of a push to create a divisive and distracting culture war writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines. 

Let me be clear from the start – I am ‘woke’ and I am proud of it. But what does it really mean and why it is now used as an insult?

Having come into common usage, ‘woke’ entered the Oxford English dictionary in 2017. The original meaning was listed as “well informed, up-to-date”, but is now defined as “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice”. Merriam-Webster has a similar definition – “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”.

‘Woke’ is older than you think

Long before the word was used in relation to inequality, it was first recorded in the 19th century. Its original meaning was as a version of woken, or awake, (i.e. no longer asleep). In 1920’s America, in Harlem, an event entitled the ‘Stay Woke Ball’ ran from 5.00pm to 5.00am the following day, obviously requiring participants to stay woke/awake for many hours. According to Wikipedia, by the 1930s, wokehad begun to encompass “an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans”, and the phrase ‘stay woke’ was heard in an early recording by Lead Belly.

It is easy to understand how being awake became being awake to inequalities, and evolved into being woke to them. In 1962, a New York Times magazine glossary “of phrases you might hear in Harlem today” defined woke in its current politically conscious state.

When did woke become an insult?

By 2020, parts of the political centre and right wing in several Western countries “were using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult”, according to Wikipedia. This insult was being aimed at “progressive or leftist movements and ideologies perceived as overzealous, performative, or insincere”. By 2021, woke had become used “almost exclusively as a pejorative, with most prominent usages of the word taking place in a disparaging context”.

In the UK, the anti-woke brigade using woke as an insult, has even included our government. Keen to stir up a culture war, they have turned an awareness of social injustice from a positive attribute into a negative one.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, spoke back in March about his legislative plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a US-style bill of rights. Raab stated, “I feel very strongly that the parameters of free speech and democratic debate are being whittled away, whether by the privacy issue or whether it’s wokery and political correctness”.

Jolyon Maugham – whom Raab would no doubt describe as an interfering lefty lawyer – described Raab’s attack on wokery as akin to Putin’s attack on ‘cancel culture’. Maugham went on to say, in his Twitter thread (26 March), that Russia had just quit the Council of Europe following their invasion of Ukraine. The Council of Europe is the body that administers the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Raab’s plans to undo the Human Rights Act are, said Maugham, “inconsistent with the UK’s continued membership of the Council of Europe”.

The government’s recent attack on the ECHR, for what it regards as meddling in its cruel Rwanda deportation plans, serves as yet another example of the government’s desire to remove any or all scrutiny and interference. The fact that the court is European – even though it has nothing to do with the EU and predates it by decades – matters little. Anything European is bad, and facts are seemingly irrelevant.

The weaponisation of right-wing insults

Right-wing insults on liberal targets did not start with woke. Since 2010, an earlier preferred insult was that of ‘snowflake’. It was used to as a derogatory term for someone considered to be “too easily upset and offended” (Cambridge Dictionary). Identity politics, especially since the Brexit referendum, has seen anyone left of centre regularly derided, first for their political correctness and now for their wokeness.

Right-wing commentators, such as Toby Young and Laurence Fox, are no strangers to causing deliberate offence. Earlier this year, Fox wrote an article for the Sunday Times entitled, “why I won’t date woke women”. Liberal-minded women all over the UK breathed a huge sigh of relief. But Fox didn’t stop there. Even the English football team were targeted, for kneeling ahead of a match in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. He urged them to “get off their knees”, suggesting that “woke virtue signalling has ruined football”.

In a recent article for The Critic, Toby Young criticised the government’s online safety bill as “an online invitation to woke activists to fire off a barrage of vexatious complaints”. In addition, his Twitter feed is full of criticism of “woke cancel culture” and for good measure, he’s happy to throw in the odd “snowflake” insult too. Young describes woke culture as a “free speech crisis” and “censorious”. In his case, a certain amount of censorship would not be unwelcome!

 

Fox, Young and others like them, defend their use of the insult, claiming that being woke signifies being pretentious and elite. Clearly, they are using a different dictionary from those of us proud of our wokeness.

Whether accurate or not, critics of ‘woke culture’ who claim the status of victims, seem to have successfully co-opted the language for their own ends. Hardly surprising, when the resident of Number 10, and his devotees – in and out of government – are constantly redefining our language. Just as they are redefining what it means to be patriotic and British.

For many people of a left-leaning persuasion, and even for many centrists, it’s increasingly difficult to feel any pride in our nation. In fact, our government’s willingness to break the law, and to pursue extreme right-wing policies is leaving us feeling shame, sadness and fear. Even more important, then, to hang on to any remaining pride in our own strengths and positive attributes, and those of the majority of the British public.

I’m proud to have empathy for my fellow beings. I’m proud to care about social injustice. I’m proud to care about human rights and standards of decency. Our government has taken our country on a terrifying journey in the wrong direction. We cannot let them succeed. Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion.

EU Court of Justice rules – Brits have lost EU citizenship rights thanks to Brexit

EU Court of Justice rules – Brits have lost EU citizenship rights thanks to Brexit

Jun 11, 2022 | Bylines, News

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that UK citizens have lost their EU citizenship rights as a result of Brexit. This follows an earlier ruling by the EU Advocate General, back in February, that only citizens of an EU country may hold EU citizenship and benefit from EU citizenship rights, writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for West England Bylines.

In his earlier ruling, the Advocate General confirmed that EU citizenship is additional to the nationality of EU member states, and does not replace it. He added that the loss of EU citizenship rights for British citizens was a direct result of the “sovereign decision of the UK to withdraw from the European Union”. While the Advocate-General’s ruling was not binding, it was largely expected that the ECJ would follow the same legal reasoning.

 

The legal battle for lost rights

 

The fight for the retention of lost EU citizenship rights – such as freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand in local elections – has been a battle fought on many fronts. The latest case, ruled on today, was brought by Britons living in France (EU Britizens), supported by French lawyer, Julien Fouchet.

Fouchet reacted on Twitter with a photo of a car wreck and the comment that “we will always feel our acquired rights should be inviolable”. He told me personally that he was “saddened” by the ECJ’s decision and said it was unacceptable for Brits living in the EU to be “without any right to vote, and without having been able to oppose it”. It was, he said sardonically, a “belle démocratie!!”.

EU Britizens were not surprised by the result, tweeting that the court’s hands had been tied “by the international treaty signed by the negotiators who couldn’t have cared less about our European Citizenship”. However, they are still committed to fighting on “to work to regain our rights that should have been protected by both parties”.

An earlier, similar case was brought by British nationals living in the Netherlands (Brexpats-Hear our voice) and was supported by Good Law Project’s, Jolyon Maugham. Brexpats-Hear our Voice founder, Debbie Williams said today, “the removal of rights has affected people’s lives detrimentally, diminished their opportunities and split families.”

Williams, who was one of the plaintiffs in the Netherlands case added, “the UK failed in its promise that we could carry on our lives as before and the EU did not take the moral high ground and live up to its own principles.  The much-vaunted Withdrawal Agreement has many failings and leaves many in a bureaucratic quagmire.  Many of us now have no representation. There is something wrong with society if it allows a group of citizens to be diminished and disenfranchised in this way – especially those who made important life decisions based on a set of rights – whatever judges may rule in a court of law.”

The ongoing legal battle is being fought on another front too. The “EU citizenship is a permanent status” campaign, run by Joshua Silver, argues that “nobody has the legal power to remove our EU Citizenship and associated rights”. Silver’s petition currently has over 131,000 signatories.

 

Exploring the options

 

An early supporter of the retention of EU citizenship rights for Brits living in Europe, was Guy Verhofstadt – the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator at the time. Back in 2019, he advocated for EU member states “to grant UK citizens living in Europe the full rights as they have today”. He also proposed the idea of a “European associated citizenship”.

There was even talk of the possibility of British citizens paying a fee to the EU for EU citizenship benefits, much in the way that EU member countries pay for EU membership benefits. But the idea was widely rejected, not least because it would have only helped those in a position to pay.

 

Moving forward

 

I have huge sympathy for everyone suffering the acute loss of rights that we took for granted as residents of EU countries. We had every reason to believe that those rights were ours for life. We even dared to believe the politicians that assured us that nothing would change and our rights and freedoms would not be diminished.

However, while I would be delighted to keep the rights I have enjoyed for 15 years in Spain, I believe all British citizens – including the millions resident in the UK – were equally robbed of benefits, freedoms and opportunities. If we are to find a solution, and restore EU citizenship rights to Britons in the EU, we must do so for us all.

Sadly, the court’s decision today was no real surprise. We are no longer EU citizens and can no longer enjoy the many benefits that EU citizenship confers. As far as citizens’ rights are concerned, it seems, Brexit really does mean Brexit.

Brits in the EU have watched in horror as our rights have been stripped away. But for Brits in the UK, the consequences of Brexit on their personal rights and freedoms are only just dawning. Long queues at the borders, roaming charges, obstacles to working and living abroad, etc. are the new post-Brexit reality. This is not the Brexit the public were promised, or that the majority voted for.

There is, ultimately, only one way to restore the loss of our rights, and that’s to rejoin the single market, rejoin the customs union, and eventually, rejoin the European Union. The UK may not be ready to have that conversation yet, but that day is coming, and it is inevitable. The economy and global standing of the UK depends on it. Until that day, Brits in the EU will continue to be second class citizens whose rights have been diminished for the sake of an ideology that we didn’t support.

Lord Frost gives evidence to public administration and constitutional affairs committee

Lord Frost gives evidence to public administration and constitutional affairs committee

Jun 9, 2022 | Bylines, News

This week Lord Frost came up with a series of explanations for why the Brexit deal isn’t working, none of them being his fault writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines. 

Whatever’s wrong with the Brexit deal – and according to Lord David Frost that’s quite a lot – it’s someone else’s fault. On Tuesday, Lord Frost, former chief Brexit negotiator, was giving evidence to a House of Commons select committee. The public administration and constitutional affairs committee (PACAC) was taking evidence on the subject of ‘Scrutiny of International Treaties and other International Agreements’.

Over the course of 90 minutes, while giving his evidence, Frost was ready to lay blame at a number of different doors. Whilst his comments and suggestions on how future negotiations might be improved were welcomed, his failure to take responsibility for the current sad state of play cannot have gone unnoticed.

Parliamentary scrutiny and involvement

Frost suggested that parliament should have more scrutiny and be more actively involved in future trade negotiations. They should be given time to express their views and should have the opportunity to vote yes or no on any significant international trade deals, ahead of their ratification. So far, so good.

However, parliament was apparently at fault during the Brexit negotiations. Firstly, they were “conflicted” and were “not clear” what they wanted from the negotiations in 2019. Frost criticised parliament for what he called the “Surrender Act” – the bill that prevented the UK leaving the EU without a deal. Running things from parliament was a “Cromwell-style takeover”, and legally blocking a no-deal Brexit had hampered his negotiating efforts.

According to Frost, this “hugely undermined” the UK negotiating hand. This then resulted in the UK having to “agree more or less what was imposed on us in order to be able to move forward and deliver the referendum result”. Frost said parliament seemed not to want to deliver on that result, describing the whole situation as “extremely unsatisfactory”.

John McDonnell MP told Frost that it seemed as though he thought “parliament was blocking the ‘will of the people’”. In fact, McDonnell said, parliament was merely “trying to get the best deal possible”

Lack of resources

Frost suggested that negotiations were hampered by a lack of experts and a lack of support staff. The fact that, for the last 40 years, the EU had done all the negotiating for us, meant a lack of relevant experience. But the issue was not just about numbers, or levels of expertise. Those pesky civil servants were “political”, and not necessarily on the same Brexit page as the government. Far better to recruit special advisers, presumably at considerable expense, who wouldn’t question government plans, motives or orders.

 

Lord Frost says that he thinks Parliament will need to increase the resources and support in order for Committees to properly scrutinise international agreements, including legal expertise, trade expertise and greater domestic expertise.

— PACAC Committee (@CommonsPACAC) June 7, 2022

 

May and the meaningful votes

In time-honoured Conservative fashion, the previous administration was clearly going to come in for criticism and blame. Theresa May’s ill-advised, and pointlessly self-inflicted, general election was a significant factor. Having destroyed her own majority, getting Brexit through parliament then proved to be impossible. A series of “meaningful votes” undermined the UK’s position, Frost said, and encouraged the EU to believe reversing Brexit was not only desirable, but possible.

The worst criticism of May’s handling of Brexit, however, was Frost’s interpretation of it being a “soft” Brexit. It certainly didn’t feel very soft at the time. But to Frost, the ‘backstop’ arrangement – that allowed the UK to stay in the customs union and parts of the single market – was several steps too far. May’s commitment to Northern Ireland alignment had been “damaging”. All would have been fine, Frost suggested, if he had not “inherited stuff”.

A “fundamental misunderstanding” by the EU

Frost directed much of the blame at the European Union. There was plenty about the withdrawal agreement that the government didn’t like, but efforts were concentrated on changing the backstop. Johnson’s comments regarding Northern Ireland were “not misleading”, Frost said, but were “misinterpreted”. Frost described his “brutal and confrontational” approach as appropriate and effective. “In the end, it worked”, he said.

With regards to negotiating a trade deal, Frost claimed that a zero-tariff free trade agreement was “very desirable” but not at any cost. Some things, he said were more important. Such as, “sovereignty, removing the [European] courts, no legal constraints”. He added that, “we weren’t willing to sacrifice those to get zero tariffs”. On this matter, there was a “fundamental misunderstanding” by the EU. Unlike the fundamental misunderstanding of the British government as to the type of Brexit the public wanted, or voted for.

Not my fault

The final, and most bizarre, scapegoat for Brexit negotiation failures was the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Frost described the act as “one of the factors” preventing the negotiations from running smoothly. A bemused McDonnell said this was “an interesting new theory about who to blame for some of the negotiating problems that we had”.

Frost is not responsible, it seems, for the deal he negotiated, praised, resigned over and now criticises at every opportunity. It was the lack of resources, the EU, parliament and Theresa May. Like Johnson, he refuses to accept personal blame or responsibility for where we are or where we are heading.

Karin Smyth MP asked Frost if his approach had been “honourable”. The fact that the government is imminently planning to override the UK/EU trade deal with controversial, and likely illegal, legislation would rather suggest otherwise.

If the PACAC committee really wants advice on how to improve future international treaties and agreements, maybe they should ask some real experts. Ones who admit their mistakes, learn from them and put co-operation ahead of confrontation. Brussels might be a good place to start.

Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood calls for UK to join the single market

Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood calls for UK to join the single market

Jun 4, 2022 | Bylines, News

Ellwood says the government’s choice of Brexit is damaging and could be softened by the UK joining the single market – the Norway option, writes Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines.

Brexit has not turned out how “most people imagined”. That’s according to senior Conservative MP, and chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood. After months of ignoring the blindingly obvious – to British business owners at least, if not to British politicians – Ellwood has dared to suggest the UK should rejoin the single market.

Ellwood, who recently spoke out against the prime minister, said the government’s choice of a “hard Brexit” has done significant damage to UK exporters. In his statement, he said it would be a “dereliction of duty” if the government failed to re-evaluate the UK/EU relationship under present circumstances.

All the current challenges, such as extra bureaucracy and issues over the Northern Ireland protocol, “would disappear if we dare to advance our Brexit model by re-joining the single market”, he said. A move to join the European Economic Area (the Norway option) would ease the cost-of-living crisis and bolster the UK economy.

With Brexit reducing the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 4 percent, according to the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, clearly urgent action is needed.

The Brexit we voted for?

Ellwood quoted a recent YouGov poll that said this was not the Brexit most people had envisaged, and that the majority of the public now believe Brexit has gone badly. Meanwhile, minister for Brexit opportunities, Jacob Rees-Mogg, continues his search for elusive Brexit benefits, whilst insisting that replacing the prime minister right now would “be a real risk” to those imagined opportunities.

Brexiter MPs, of course, would have us believe that the Brexit we have now is exactly the one that was voted for. But the reality is that ‘leaving the EU’ could have been done in many different ways while still delivering on the referendum mandate. Clearly the interpretation of the public’s choice of Brexit was viewed differently by the current prime minister than by the last one, for example.

Indeed, although both Boris Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May chose a hard Brexit, their execution was rather different. And it was several months after the referendum before May announced that Brexit would mean the UK leaving the single market. This was not an inevitable consequence of leaving the European Union, it was a choice made later, and not by the British public.

Brexiters supported staying in the single market

Although they may now claim otherwise, numerous Brexit-supporting politicians previously insisted that leaving the EU did not mean leaving the single market or the customs union. In fact, many were adamant that the UK would retain all the benefits of membership of both, and even of the EU itself.

Founder of Leave.EU, Aaron Banks, even said that “the Norway option looks the best for the UK”. Former MEP Daniel Hannan was quoted as saying that “absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”. And Owen Paterson MP went one step further by insisting that “only a madman would actually leave the market”.

While the reasons people voted for Brexit are many and varied, many were reassured that the benefits of single market membership were not at risk. Significantly, Boris Johnson himself said he was in favour of the single market and would vote to stay in it.

Deny, deny, deny

If the Leave campaign’s vision of Brexit – the one they sold to the British people – was to leave the single market and the customs union, then this should have been made clear at the time. The story these politicians are now telling is a rather different one, where the British public all knew they were voting to leave the European Union and the single market and the customs union – otherwise known as the hardest Brexit possible.

According to Mark Harper MP, the UK voted to leave the EU and “that meant leaving the single market and putting an end to freedom of movement. The end.”

Despite having negotiated the Brexit deal, before trashing it and resigning as Brexit minister, Lord Frost could not resist adding his usual unhelpful opinion. Referring to Ellwood’s statement, and seemingly unaware of the irony, he claimed that Brexit was “not safe in his hands”. Being in the single market, but outside of the EU, “means accepting lots of law set by people we didn’t elect”, said the unelected member of the House of Lords.

Support for joining the single market

There has been widespread support for Ellwood’s comments from those who favoured remaining in the EU. Former Conservative MP, David Gauke tweeted, “Tobias is right. Extraordinary that this point has become almost unsayable”. Lord Andrew Adonis said he was all in favour of “upgrading Brexit” with a return to single market membership. And CEO of Best for Britain, Naomi Smith, noted how single market membership would “soothe inflation, workforce shortage and supply chain woes”.

What was notable by its absence was any comment from opposition parties, most of whom are still avoiding the ‘B’ word at every opportunity. Criticism of Brexit by Labour is seemingly as elusive as Rees-Mogg’s Brexit benefits.

A less-painful Brexit would be a popular choice

The majority of the British public do not support this hard Brexit. A softer approach, that maintains access to, and the benefits of, single market and customs union membership, would have been a workable compromise. It would not have satisfied the extremists on either side, but it would have softened the blow, done considerably less damage, and would have helped to heal the painful wounds of a divisive campaign. It still could – if our politicians would only be brave enough to say so.

Ellwood has been praised for showing courage in speaking out. But it shouldn’t take courage to speak the truth, especially when there is so much evidence to back it up – as detailed in the Detriments of Brexit document published by Yorkshire Bylines.

The time for ignoring the ‘B’ word is over. It’s time for a constructive debate about our future relationship with the EU, and with the truth. It’s not too late to undo much of the damage or to change the course of this punishing Brexit. Let’s not wait until it is.

UK unilateral action over protocol

UK unilateral action over protocol

May 25, 2022 | Bylines, News

This was not the first time we have heard from the UK government that the negotiated Brexit deal – and the protocol – is not fit for purpose, writes Bremain Chair Sue WILSON MBE for Yorkshire Bylines. 

When Brexit opportunities minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg, gave evidence to the European scrutiny committee, back in April, he announced the government’s plans to act unilaterally over issues relating to the Northern Ireland protocol. It was “widely accepted”, he claimed, “that the protocol is not working and needs reform”.

This was not the first time we had heard from a government minister, or indeed the prime minister himself, that the negotiated Brexit deal is not fit for purpose. Despite the deal being hailed as a huge triumph, and sold to parliament and the public as such, it seems that the only motivations were getting Brexit “done”, and getting Boris Johnson re-elected.

According to Rees-Mogg, the deal was only signed “on the basis that it would be reformed”, and if the EU wouldn’t reform it, then the UK government would do so unilaterally.

Unilateral action proposals

The EU is sadly familiar with UK government attempts to threaten, blame and bully. Threats to act unilaterally, such as by triggering Article 16 – the safeguarding mechanism within the protocol itself – are hardly new. Regarded largely as empty threats by the EU, they have only succeeded in destroying any remaining trust between the two parties and harming EU/UK relations.

This latest threat, however, is the worst yet. This time the UK government aims to pass legislation that would, according to government lawyers, allow them to override parts of the protocol itself. Rather than use the mechanism provided by the protocol itself, the government aims to break international law.

The supposed justification for doing so, according to the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is “upholding the Belfast Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and restoring political stability”. With the exception of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), other parties, other countries, and especially the EU and USA say the only way to achieve both those desirable aims is to implement the protocol. The protocol is not the problem. The protocol is the solution – the only one possible. The problem is the hard Brexit the government – not the country – chose.

The EU response

The drastic – and illegal – plans have been widely criticised across Europe. Maroš Šefčovič, vice president of the European Commission and chief EU Brexit negotiator, said plans to suspend parts of the protocol were “simply not acceptable”.

Although it hopes to avoid such action by UK authorities, the EU is preparing plans to retaliate if necessary. These plans could include a trade war, with tariffs being applied, suspending parts of the trade and cooperation agreement, or terminating the trade agreement in its entirety.

Not for the first time, the EU has reiterated that renegotiation of the protocol is not on the table.

 

Criticism from the island of Ireland

Foreign affairs minister for Ireland, Simon Coveney, called the UK government’s plans “obscene”. He said “compromise and dialogue” were required to solve any outstanding protocol issues. Unilateral action by the UK government “breaches international law and further damages trust”.

 

First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, said unilateral action to denounce the withdrawal agreement or disapply the protocol, was “reckless”. She added that Johnson was “feeding political instability and economic uncertainty”.

Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou Macdonald, claimed that Johnson was “in cahoots with” and facilitating the DUP in a “game of brinkmanship”. The DUP, who are deliberately blocking power-sharing at Stormont, have welcomed the UK government’s proposals. They insist that the protocol is damaging the economy of Northern Ireland, and the protocol does not have the support of the people of Northern Ireland. The results of the recent elections disprove that claim. As do the Northern Irish business groups pleading with the prime minister not to take unilateral action.

Though not without Brexit-related problems, Northern Ireland has benefitted from the ability to trade freely with both unions – the UK and the EU – a point the UK government would prefer went unnoticed. Northern Ireland’s continued membership of the European single market has brought many benefits and opportunities, though not the ones Rees-Mogg is still searching for. Scotland, Wales, and probably England too, can only look on with envy.

Rumblings from across the pond

The American authorities are so concerned about the latest threat to the Good Friday Agreement that they sent a delegation of senators to London, Brussels, Belfast and Dublin.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi had recently warned that Congress would not back any trade deal with the UK if the UK government discards the protocol. President Biden has made similar comments and takes the US role as guarantor of the GFA very seriously. Following a meeting between the US delegation and the EU, a joint statement was issued confirming US solidarity for the EU position – no renegotiation of the protocol.

One of the many misleading and disingenuous claims the Brexiters made about Brexit was the freedom for Britain to stand on its own two feet. It is perhaps one Brexit promise that has come closest to being realised, though perhaps not in the way the government, or the public, visualised. The UK is alone, but as a result of being isolated, side-lined and distrusted by those it needs to work with, and trade with.

Although clearly on the government’s agenda, the planned legislation aiming to override the protocol did not make the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the legislative agenda for the coming year. Yet a week later, it was back on the table. Did even this government – with seemingly no qualms about making the country more extremist – draw the line at having the head of state present plans to break international law?

Even our government now admits that it signed the protocol in bad faith. While Johnson is still in charge, any head of state thinking of signing a deal with the UK, would be well advised to count their fingers following any handshake with our PM.

Johnson is not to be trusted. Which sadly means, neither is Britain.

Open Letter to Lord Frost from Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE

Open Letter to Lord Frost from Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE

Apr 10, 2022 | Bylines, News

Dear David,

As we’re old friends now, I’m sure you’ll forgive the informality of my address. I thought you would rather prefer David to ‘Frosty’, with or without the ‘no-man’ handle.

I note that, despite your resignation from your role as Brexit Minister, we have not been spared your ruminations on all things Brexit-related. I know that it’s not unusual for ex-Chancellors to be asked to comment on the economy, or ex-PMs to be asked to comment on policy, but as far as I’m aware, nobody was doing any asking on this occasion.

Of course, as your latest ‘article’ – for want of a better description – was published in The Telegraph, I’m sure your incoherent and incomprehensible musings were received with open arms. After all, any newspaper that employed your former boss as a regular ‘journalist’ clearly has some judgement issues.

So, about your latest comments. Firstly, I’m sure it’ll be no surprise to you that I am an ultra-Remainer, and yes, I am mobilising. There are millions like me, and we have a democracy to save. Your suggestion that we “became a full democracy once again” thanks to Brexit just proves your complete misunderstanding of, well, everything.

If memory serves, you were once a Remainer too. Even when you couldn’t make up your mind which side you were on (who does that remind me of?), you were in favour of single market and customs union membership. You said that, for the sake of global trade, “it simply isn’t worth jeopardising access”. Even in this latest article you state that “no sensible person would deny that leaving the single market and customs union has some effect on trade in the short run”. I guess we would probably argue over how long “the short run” equates to. I think your fellow Brexiteer, Jacob Rees-Mogg might have mentioned fifty years or so. Seems quite a long run to me.

Despite having advocated your “grand new free trade agreement”, and boasted about securing the deal in just 10 months, the gilt on the deal wore off quickly. How long was it, exactly, before you and Johnson started rubbishing your own deal and demanding the EU make changes? When the EU failed to respond to your posturing, bullying nonsense, you threw in the towel and left the job to another incompetent Brexit convert. Never gave up the title, though, did you? Bet you’re giving that a lot of thought now that you’re eyeing up No. 10.

You complain in your piece about European Movement Chair, Lord Adonis, saying that “Brexit has failed. We were lied to. It’s time to rethink”. But that’s all you do – you don’t say what’s wrong with those comments, or even contest their veracity. Perhaps that’s wise, though no surprise. Disputing the truth has never been something that Brexiteers have shied away from. Quite the opposite.

To be fair, your disconnection from reality is not limited to Brexit. It applies equally to “living with Covid successfully”, and a variety of “world-leading” claims. Have you seen the Covid figures recently? Hundreds of British people are ‘dying with Covid’ every single day. And as for the UK leading the world in anything at all, I’m struggling to think of a single example. Well, any positive examples.

Your article did make me smile though. My favourite paragraph was the one where you said, “it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the trade figures”, adding that “the picture is reassuring”! Have you seen the latest reports from the Office of Budget Responsibility? However, it wasn’t those comments that caused my smile – it was the start of the paragraph. It began, “in reality”. Worthy of any comedy club appearance, that one.

You claimed that “what matters is not trade, but economic growth”, so I guess you are not an advocate of doing trade with the EU, or the US for that matter. Though quite how the economy is expected to grow when we’ve few friends or trading partners is beyond me. Of course, I’m no economist, or member of the House of Lords, so what would I know?

Your final piece of Brexit-related nonsense was to suggest that the next referendum on EU membership should be held in 2067. After all, we had 47 years for the EU to demonstrate “that UK membership was a good idea” and Brexit should be measured by the same standard. If you’ll excuse me for pointing out the bleeding obvious, it didn’t take 47 years for the country to benefit from EU membership, or to take note. The benefits were obvious right from the start.

Do you remember when, back in the good old days of pre-EU membership, the UK was branded as the “sick man of Europe”? I’ve got news for you. Thanks to you, your ex-boss and your Brexiteer friends, that label is back. So, keep your irrational, asinine, and frankly, boring remarks to yourself. You resigned as Brexit Minister, remember. Nobody is listening now, if they ever were.

Sue Wilson MBE

First published in West England Bylines on 10 April 2022