Category Archives: England departure from the EU.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. THEY THE TORIES ARE LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK.

23 Sunday Oct 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Brexit., England departure from the EU., England in five years., England's future., ENGLAND'S SNAP ELECTION, England., Inflation., The cost of the Tories., Uncategorized

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(Seven minute read)

On a annual salary of £115,000  and expenses Liz Trust lasted less than fifty days in office.

She can walk away with £19,000 in severance pay plus her expenses.

Tony Blair and John Major also received the annual salary of £115,000 pounds.

Gordon Brown £114, 800. David Cameron £111,400.

Theresa May a sitting MP can claim a parliament staffing budget of £35,000 on top of the annual  salary.

So what does it all cost?

The Gravy House of the Lords.

800 members/ peer costing £30,000 per member at a total cost of around £117.4 million.

They are entitled to £323 pounds a day just for signing into the Chamber.

Houses Of Parliament Wallpapers - Wallpaper Cave

The Poor House the Common’s.

The total spend of members of parliament was £132.5 million in the 2020-21.

The average cost of an MP was £203,880 in 2020-21, a 29.2 per cent increase.

The Royal House. Buckingham Palace.

It cost the taxpayer a mire £103 million ( 2021-22)

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The Tories are throwing away any right to claim that they are the careful custodians of the public’s money.

The inglorious history of their follies are crying out with horror at the cost, crying with laughter at the sheer stupidity of so many bad decisions. They are now making a very strong bid to be the most blunder-prone regime of the modern era.

The net cost of the bank bailouts—once you factor in money recouped by the government—was £27 billion. Separate figures from the National Audit Office (NAO) in 2018 estimated the sum spent to stabilise the banks to be £133 billion.

Most of the trade deals with non-EU countries that the UK has signed have been small in their economic effect, and have merely been “rolled over” from identical ones when we were an EU member.

The impression was that there would be no downside. We would thrive outside Europe’s bureaucracy which was strangling our companies with red tape. The huge benefits of the single market – trading freely across borders, with common standards – were never highlighted.

Two new carriers that has attracted criticism over its £6.2bn cost more than £2bn over the original estimate.

The latest estimate of the cost of HS2 has spiralled to between £72bn and £98bn.

Then came the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol, an issue that so infuriated the EU it has refused to ratify Britain’s associate membership of the €95bn scheme.

The final cost of the Tories is that 70% of economic turnover was international before Brexit. It went from 70% to 50% to 30%,  it would be twice the size if it were not for Brexit.

Then came Covid which compounded Brexit’s disruption to British government, while Boris Johnson’s cavalier approach to leadership and to constitutional norms puts stresses and strains on all of its institutions. The books on the history of Covid-19 will show the ways in which money was blown in such spectacular style. It was a vast pyrotechnic display of borrowed moola such as we’ll surely never see repeated. Much of it, in the UK, as with other countries, was spent without apparent constraint.

Furlough – or the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, to give it a name – cost a staggering £70bn.

The fiscal year 2020-21 was the first one in which government spending in the UK surpassed a trillion pounds, reaching £1096bn. That was a one-year increase of 23.5%.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, said:

“Economic growth isn’t some academic term with no connection to the real world. It means more jobs, higher pay and more money to fund public services, like schools and the NHS.

Leave the Tories in power and the results will speak for themselves.

The north-south divide has now least 85 years.

The UK has higher levels of regional inequality than any other large wealthy country.

Levelling up like Boris it is absolutely miles away. It would cost  hundreds of billions of pounds over decades if done properly. its

Nothing more than rhetoric in a country up to its neck in Debt.

The cost of Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’: £2tn.

A drop in the ocean of inflation.

Boris Johnson said at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry that regional inequalities are an ‘outrage’

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE PENDING COLLAPSE OF ENGLAND

16 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, BORIS JOHNSON., England departure from the EU., England's future., England.

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(Fifteen-minute read )

I have just watched the debate for the leadership of the Conservative party and sadly next prime minister of England.

None of the candidates were asked to address the following essential overriding question England’s future.  

Now that England has left the EU –  England? – What is it?

Today this is the hard question because Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role outside the EU. 

One of the many driving forces behind Brexit, it seems to me, was English/British exceptionalism, encapsulated in the winning slogan “Take back control”.

We are different, we are unique, and we are exceptional.

Unfortunately, it’s now too late to realize that it is a medium-sized relatively unimportant country that has destroyed its manufacturing base in a Faustian pact with financial interests to become the money laundering “world beater” and the conduit of choice for tax evasion.

It’s young, are now on the slippery slope to a new medieval world recreation of taxation to support its crumbling economy and public services. 

This time, there might be no way out.

Instead of catapulting it into a better age, modernity in the form of Tech will now be used to keep it in this state – imprison it in a world made by the mega-rich – by manipulating it to keep things exactly as they are.

An awakening is needed.

But I profess to be blind and deaf as to how the masses can be awakened, other than that the message is conveyed to it by the means of a very short, sharp, and deeply profound shock, which will be devastating for many and, no doubt, capitalized on by those who seek to divide it. 

In the documentary ‘Social Dilemma’, it is pointed out that most of the recent investment in the world has gone into improving the processing power of algorithms and computing – it has outstripped investment and development in the fight against cancer, and science and technology elsewhere – all designed to predict even better how we will respond and then have us hanging in front of our devices, slobbering like Pavlov’s dogs for the next ‘impulse’.

That is what has been happening in the world  – more people are being manipulated – not informed.

On leaving the EU England lost all sense of the common good and now the definition of the ‘common good’  sits outside the reference framework on how one might view the structures for the provision of the ‘common good.

The problem has always been having a democracy, or wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.

You can’t have both so we hear the slogan leveling up. 

This cannot be achieved while witnessing politicians like Boris and the X Health Minister Matt Hancock who defend brazen neoliberal exploitation of publicly funded, public health provision for private profit as if it was simply illustrative of a fair free market.

At the top of English society, it is an amoral world where money is the only common factor –  up to recently it does not matter if you are Russian or a criminal – it is the size of your wad that matters – money rules.

There is no free market here.

The simple fact of the matter is that politicians have failed to reign these forces in and weakened resistance for example by undermining unions and worker rights.

What we are seeing now is that last grab of what is left.

The collapse of the UK will come because without having a role as an exploiter – whether by old-fashioned land grab or by financial capture of other country’s economies by the City of London and its tax havens – those ruling from London have no idea what role England has.

The politicians who can imagine an England that has its own role in the world, as a separate nation-state, not dependent on the support of the other countries that have sustained it for centuries, are what are required to guide it now.

And I can’t see them, as yet.

The worrying bit for me is that there seems no longer to be any concern that these things happen so bare-facedly these days.

This seems to have happened in plain sight, but too many of our eyes are looking down at our devices being distracted by Apps and god knows what else (gambling, porn, Facebook, etc.,).

And the internet is there to be used as those with money see fit to maintain the status quo.

                           —————————————-

I have to live in hope, but now it is much more complex than England which has adapted to less.

A post-colonial, post-financialised, non-exploitative vision of England as a separate country that can survive on its own rather than by extracting value from others is what is required if it is to make it through the long existential crisis that it is now facing. 

That hope includes a belief that England can find a future in which exploitation plays no part. That hope has limited foundations. But when the alternative is offered by the far right it is something I have to believe possible.

Survival always requires a will to do so. I don’t think the UK, as a union of four nations, has that will anymore.

It’s why I see independence for Scotland soon, Irish reunification thereafter, and then Wales also thinking there might be a better alternative to rule from London.

Labour sat out Brexit, but can’t sit out this crisis.

It’s going to be too painful to do that. They must have plans they can promote to deal with the immediate issues.

Whatever was normal will have gone by the time this crisis is over. Whatever replaces it is not yet known. It could be fascism. And it could be something so much better. But the better route requires a willingness to imagine it. I only see that willingness in Scotland right now.

No doubt with the pending departure of Boris sanity is starting to prevail in the government in regard to the future of the UK economy not to mention the Union in relation to the effects of Brexit and Covid-19!

This is now a country that agreed to make a series of payments to the EU, as part of the deal when it left in January 2020, often called the divorce bill.

It’s now a country that cannot feed its people, provide medical care, freely educate its future generation, build affordable homes, and create a green generate economy. A country whose history shaped much of the world for both the good and the bad now needs a written constitution to guide it into the future.   

From January 2021, there was about £25bn left to pay by 2057.  

Trust in politicians has now sunk so low in Britain that it could very well have to adapt to even less than that.

To me, isolation it’s just such a bizarre hill to die on.

When successful, politics goes largely unnoticed, when it messes up, a furor ensues.

So I ask where are the voices of young England.

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS DOES LIVING IN ENGLAND NOW SUCK.

02 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by in England departure from the EU., England.

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(Twelve-minute read) 


It is fair to say that Britain now no longer rules the waves and it is a country on the point of breaking up because it spent most of its past industrial wealth on an image rather than on its people.

Indeed it has been going downhill long before Brexit with Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, which created a society blighted by poverty, wages, and despairs.

For the sake of short-term profit, she crushed the trade unions’ movement marginalizing workers’ voices, sunk an obsolete Argentine Cruiser the General Belgrano, and her growing hostility to Brussels inspired the Euroskeptics, the Brexit delivery machine.

” There is no such thing as Society”

You could say that’s all in the past, but is it really.  According to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, all is well in the sunny uplands of ‘Global Britain’, as he recently told us from a New York rooftop that he “does not believe” that anyone in Britain will struggle to put food on the table this winter.

Instead, he believes that the labor shortages he has engineered, by slamming up the shutters on 40 years of freedom of movement between Britain and the EU, will cause wages to rise, and that people will consequently be fine.

He might be right but at a cost, England cannot afford it in a world that is beginning to resist the catastrophic cult of cash, the export potential of thousands of British companies is now looking more than bleak.

Given the huge Brexit hit there future is now not an opportunity to make a quick buck, but rather an opportunity for the fundamental civil right of organized workers to be heard.

This is now becoming the vital foundation to build back towards a sustainable future

It is increasingly evident, combined with the avalanches of huge and intractable global problems as the story of Brexit unfolds, that he is living in the clouds.

Rather than actively seeking it out, he needs to correct the national addiction to poverty wages, not by clapping the NHS or raising the national insurance stamp or dumping the £20 covid assistance but by shaking off the shackles of an outdated system of surfs versus the monarchy.

Yes, culture-wise the Monacry should be preserved for the sake of history and tourism.

In this day and age to have to ask permission of a person that is only entitled by the accident of birth to be designated royal when a leader who is elected by the people to power has to ask permission to form a government is a joke.

Not to mention that this person owns all of the seabeds up to 12 kilometers of the countries coastline, which was recently discovered by a new seaweed farm when they had to get royal assent to establish a new carbon zero producing farm on the coast of Scotland.        

All of which raises a vital question about what exactly the UK has become, over the last few decades.

England which was once notorious across the planet for its destructive short-termism is trying to live an ideology reverting to its past glory.

Though, its disregard of climate change during the Industrial Age, and its recent departure from the EU it now faces outcomes regardless of its fine words, that are highlighting its inability to value either humanity or nature as highly as money.

In a world that is driven by unregulated technological advancement, nobody will ever persuade me that Brexit was a good choice.  

                                           ————————-

If one takes a look at England from back in the sixties to the present day, the barometer on what is socially unfavorable could not be starker. 

A country that is ranked as the fifth richest in the world now has approximately 2.5 million people using food banks (run by groups of volunteers, churches, and charities) with 14 million ( 4.5 million children) living below the breadline. That is 12% of the total population of the UK and they have been living like this for the last four years with over 4,000 people sleeping rough on the streets and almost a murder a day it’s no wonder that is women folk feel unsafe on the streets.   

While spending nearly $8 billion building two new large, conventionally-fueled aircraft carriers not to mention HS2 which is already billions over budget costing 307 million per mile.

The cost of replacing Trident is estimated at £31 billion. The cost of operating, maintaining, and renewing the nuclear deterrent is substantial. 

The national lottery raises around £8,373.9 million out of which since 2008 a total of £100 million a year has been spent on winning medals in the Olympics/ Para Olympics worth around £540 (Gold). 

                                         ———————-

The ‘Swinging Sixties’ remains the defining decade for Britain.

It was the period that finally allowed people the liberty and individuality people had fought for and what we take for granted nowadays. Indeed it would be fair to say England was only just forgetting the troubles of the Second World War. In just ten short years, London was transformed from the bleak city into the capital of the world, full of freedom, hope, and promise.

By the end of the decade, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved the impossible by becoming the first men on the moon in 1969.

England, on the other hand, had not grasped that people outside London were struggling.

Not everyone lives/wants to live in London.

It has taken all of this time to the present day for recognition of this fact.

Why?

Because Brits are notoriously passive-aggressive and avoid conflict, and this can sometimes come off as very fake and superficial. It can also be very counterproductive and time-consuming to jump around a subject instead of being direct with it.

And people just don’t understand until it’s directly affecting them.

The worst part is that too many British people still don’t realize how their economy is tanking and still refuse to acknowledge it and never talk about it. Which is frustrating in and of itself.

One of the worst legacies in its class system is Council Tax. 

I am not talking about the weather which for the most part is consistently grey and mentally draining and depressing in Britain.

I fundamentally disagree with tax that is not income-based. I think how much tax you pay should always depend on how much money you’re making—otherwise, it’s not fair.

Council tax is a local tax, usually done by the city or county you live in.

The Council is responsible for all of the local things—streetlights, garbage collection, libraries, police and emergency services, etc.

It’s not a normal tax—you have to pay it separately, it’s not automatically deducted from a paycheck. This is because it is not technically income-based—how much council tax you pay depends on where you live and the size of your residence. So even if you aren’t employed and aren’t receiving paychecks, you still have to pay council tax. (Students are exempt from paying council tax, and in theory, if you are on welfare/benefits you won’t have to pay either.

The average person in England needs to earn 20 days’ worth of wages to cover the cost of their council tax bill, while in some areas the average employee would need to work for a full month to pay the bill.

People working or not in England on visas have no access to public funds or the NHS National Health Service through their visas. 

Racists have been emboldened since Brexit, and the attitude to foreigners is appalling. Murdering an Indian” is not a racist act of violence but voraciously eating curry, and cheers is a catch-all phrase that can mean thank you or fuck off depending on the tone of voice.

Most jobs pay monthly, so you just get one lump sum and need to budget it out throughout the month. This is opposed to in the US, where paychecks are generally bi-weekly. Oh, and if you work two jobs, your second job can be taxed nearly 50%. Good luck trying to pay rent with a tax return in April. 

All transportation is insanely, painfully expensive ludicrously expensive. 

The end result has been a mixed-race with diverse skin and hair colors, statues and builds, gastronomy, and cultural habits. Numerous museums, galleries, and parishes testify to Britain’s admirable past.Portrait of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria ruled Britain for over 60 years. British soldiers in fact fought wars in almost every year of Victoria’s reign.

The country’s often archaic political system and ways of organizing itself are once again coming under immense strain, now in the throes of limited reform thanks to a revolutionary expansion in communications.

England is now once more a society in the grip of more convulsive, complex, and disturbing change than had been experienced by any previous culture in human history. From a blood-soaked glorious empire to a pawn shop. 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: TO DAY WE WILL WITTINESS A HYPOCRISY ON A HISTORICAL SCALE.

30 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., England departure from the EU.

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(Four-minute read)

We are all guilty of hypocrisy in our lives and will continue to be, but there is no excuse for practising it on a historical scale.

A ‘wet’ and overprice country situated on an island in North-Western Europe that was for over forty years a superficial member of the EU will now be eternally sorry about Brexit. (A word they invented, then voted for in the same way that one might knock over a milk bottle.)

“Mad dog and English men come out in the noonday sun” so today the 31 January 2020 at 23:00 GMT can only be described as one of those national “whoops” moments, so ironic and so painfully British.

The Bulldog runs with its tail between its legs.

Perhaps the only uniting element in the UK is the weather, useful only in that it influences every daily decision and can be blamed for just about everything, even 1066.

(Since most of them – the British – are foreign, particularly the aristocrats, many of whom owe their lands and titles to the events of 1066, the date at which foreignness began in Britain.)

If the British seems complex it’s because they don’t know each other too well. Things take a lot of time to be understood and actioned, upon, sometimes, decades.

Culturally diverse, great inventors, a nation is deeply divided, by region, country and class unless it is threatened (Ironically, the British love the nations that they invaded, particularly those that retain the Queen’s head on their stamps) are now after two world wars to create peace in Europe and the world turning their backs to return to 800-year-old book of democracy the Magna Carta which was recently saved by two Americans.

From the “Sunshine Empire to Shrinking Nation” a disunited kingdom, then, can seem a little obtuse with their national identity now on a weak wicket.

In a world that must come together to tackle its problems, its departure from the European Union can only be described as pathic.

In a world that is not immunity to external factors, that is “Paradoxical and contradictory” a stiff upper lip has no place nor does tea and crumpets with an American comes first.

In a country that invented the national lottery, enabling poor people (those who buy lottery tickets) to fund sportspeople where someone says and what he or she actually means is often the complete opposite or very difficult to decipher.

We can only hope that the 71% of 18-24-year-olds who voted to stay in the EU come of age to engage and actively reform the EU.

To realize that a Nigel Farage waving a tiny Union Jack plastic flag is all the man ever was.

He couldn’t quite make it to the end of the EU parliament’s debate on the EU withdrawal agreement. “There is a battle going on, in the west and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular” he told them.

“Many people will argue that it is time to accept Brexit.

I disagree: now is the time, to tell the truth about it and populism which has short-term gratification at its heart.

As Remainers, we have an obligation not to fear the future, but to shape it.

The EU is a project that not only brings prosperity but also brings unity and peace through collaboration and intercultural dialogue. It has given us a common inheritance and common purpose and established a reciprocal obligation between all of its citizens.

It is a united Europe built upon, not only an economic market but also on shared ideals; a political space in which to strive for social and economic justice.

The EU will continue to be that beacon, even after the UK has left it.

“A politician thinks of the next election. A Statesman of the next generations.” Micheal Collins.

Unfortunately, the world is lacking Statesmanship.

Being fond of their myths British roots now belong to only monarchy and nowhere for themselves.

It is not the leaving or joining of anything that we need, it is regulation of who owns us- AI algorithms or us.

Footnote: Negotiations on a trade deal were helped inversely last night with a BBC program called Travels in Euroland with Ed Balls, a former cabinet minister, highlighting the Right-wing parties in Europe.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.