IT consultant, engineer, strategist.
Author of: Diagonal Lengths rethinking our world, a manifesto for a new world. Huge supporter of PR, Keen Rejoiner
In my book "Diagonal Lengths rethinking our world" I recommend creating CASE - Climate and Atmosphere Stabilisation Executive as custodian and manager of our environment. CASE would have right to charge countries for over emission and pay others for under emission #ClimateAction
🚨Brexit madness!
Matthew Elliott says the next election will be a rerun of Brexit, then argues we should stop looking backwards because the world has changed.
But if Brexit is still the defining political issue 10 years on, that tells you something.
He points to the EU’s declining share of global GDP, yet ignores geography and the fact that the EU remains the UK’s largest trading partner by far.
The question was never whether Asia would grow faster than Europe.
It was whether Britain would be more prosperous outside the Single Market than inside it.
That’s the comparison Brexit still hasn’t won.
Nope, the EU still isn't giving the UK a special deal however desperate politicians and media are to escape the trap of being just another third country. Next.
I’m living temporarily in an apartment overlooking the Rhine-Amsterdam canal. Massive barges pass up & down every few minutes. Sometimes cruise ships too. The barges carry aggregate, scrap metal, oil & God knows what else. Most fly Dutch flags but I’ve also seen Belgian, Italian, German & others.
Trade = prosperity & wealth. Wealth = freedom (happy to expand) & power.
The English, diseased in the mind & unable to compute the loss of an empire despite not losing a war, lost in cosy myth, cannot see this. Everyone in Europe’s once war-ravaged countries can.
The idea this project will be thrown away so they can hang flags on lampposts & paint mini-roundabouts is completely cuckoo.
@DaniMayakovski Just as Jewish organisations chased for reparations for Jewish families after the Holocaust, similarly, there needs to be an organisation to seek reparations for Palestinians to be compensated for the damage done to their livelihoods.
Utter tosh. I remember people making all sorts of false claims about Brexit (including that we would remain in the single market) and arguing that others would follow us. But what actually happened? More want to join.
@LizWebsterSBF Farage wasn't wrong.
Brexit gave Government control.
The fact they're clueless as to what to do with that control is neither here nor there.
20 year old student Edith Berryman at the #RejoinEU rally in parliament square calling for the UK to rejoin the European Union @MarchForRejoin
"10 years since the Brexit referendum. I am 20 years old. I have grown up living with the consequences of that decision. I have a simple question. Did Brexit deliver what we were promised? My argument is simple."
"Brexit has had a real measurable economic cost. Not just in political arguments, but in productivity, investment and living standards, not just one opinion or one forecast."
"This is the conclusion we keep seeing across UK institutions and independent research. The question is not what people believed in 2016. The question is what can we learn from the evidence shown in 2026?"
"And the evidence is clear. Firstly, in productivity, this again doesn't come from one political campaign or one think tank. This comes from the UK government, government's own Office for Budget Responsibility. Their estimate is that Brexit reduces long term, UK productivity by around 4% compared to staying in the EU."
"And more recent academic work shows that figure even higher to around 6 to 8%. To put it simply, a smaller economy than we otherwise would have had. Secondly, investment. Because countries don't just grow by accident, they grow because business."
"This creates, invests and builds for the future. Business investment in the UK fell sharply after the referendum and has remained weaker than expected ever since. Independent studies estimate it is around 10 to 15% lower than it would have been without Brexit."
"And that matters because investment means jobs, it means wages, it means opportunities for the next generation, the younger generation, my generation, alph."
"They estimate this loss in productivity translates into around 470 pounds per worker per year in lower wages over time, not just for today, but for years ahead. Thirdly, living standards."
"Because this is where the debate stops being about statistics and it becomes real people's everyday lives. Research from institutions like the London School of Economics has found that Brexit related trade barriers increased costs in everyday goods, including food, contributing to higher household bills."
"And some estimates suggest it could amount to around 250 pounds a year for the average household. And the Resolution foundation has found over, the long term, real wages are lower than they otherwise would have been expected to be. So when you put all three together, products, investment, living standards, you do not get one political slogan, you do not get one isolated focus."
"You get a consistent picture from official institutions and independent research. And the question then becomes, how did we get here from what we were promised? Because this isn't just about numbers on a spreadsheet."
"Behind every percentage point is a real life. It's about whether young people can afford a home, whether your business can grow, whether families feel like their wages are, going further. I think the biggest issue here is Trust."
"In 2016, people were asked to make one of the biggest decisions in modern British history. They were promised that leaving would mean more control, more money and a stronger future. People were told, on the side of a bus, that leaving the EU would free up 350 million pounds a week for the NHS."
"But now, 10 years on, we have to be honest about the gap between what was promised and what actually happened. Because democracy, it doesn't depend on everyone getting every decision right. Democracy depends on us being willing to look at the evidence afterwards and ask, did this work?"
"What can we learn and what should we do next? Ten years ago, Britain chose a new direction. Today, we have the chance to choose what comes next. Not based on nostalgia, not based on slogans, not based on fear."
"Based on reality. And, the future isn't built on ignoring the evidence, is built by facing it. So the question for 2026 is, now that we know the cost, what should we do next? Thank you very much."
At excellent @UKandEU conference in Brussels. Debate about future EU-UK relationship very much includes possibility of UK joining EU again. What we at @euromove have said for years about how only joining - however difficult - can put things right is now mainstream...
The government’s failure on growth is its original sin.
Andy Burnham mustn’t make the mistake of lurching to the left – he should go for growth with Europe instead.
The government’s failure on growth is its original sin.
Andy Burnham mustn’t make the mistake of lurching to the left – he should go for growth with Europe instead.
‘We need to be reaching back into Europe and telling them it was a mistake.'
Can the ‘listlessness’ in UK politics be traced back to Brexit? Caller Alan thinks it’s ‘clobbered us’.
Every British person I know wants the end of Brexit and the UK to rejoin the European Union. Nothing wrong in correcting a mistake.
Fix it, the sooner, the better and put Brexit behind Britain.
Ten years after Brexit, Sir John Major says Britain should rejoin the EU Single Market within five years, arguing the country is paying an unnecessary economic price.
https://t.co/IBYoUS4ReQ
#RejoinEU#Brexit
I’m fed up with politicians saying we need to “respect” the 2016 Brexit referendum result.
A decision by a narrow majority 10yrs ago, that turned out to be a costly mistake, does not have to be “respected”.
If a democracy cannot change its mind it ceases to be a democracy
Burnham wants to rewire Britain. But unless he reconnects us to Europe, builds homes at wartime scale, and makes Britain food-and-energy resilient, he is fixing the fuse box while the house is still flooding.
#ExitBrexit
Estas no son imágenes de Hiroshima del siglo pasado, es el sur del Líbano, donde el ejército genocida de "Israel" está haciendo desaparecer pueblos enteros, llenándolos de explosivos y volándolos por los aires.
No hay escándalo mediático en la prensa, "Israel" puede destruir pueblos enteros y ni siquiera lo hacen noticia.
It's time for a bold new deal with Europe to make Britain richer, safer and stronger.
That means a UK-EU customs union and taking Britain back into the Single Market.