europe – Write to Speak

Dear 2022

This is the first time in a long time I felt I had something to say so here it is. I found 2021 was really just a continuation of 2020. More of the same. I am glad to see the back of it despite some goods things I have personally achieved this year. However, Covid and Brexit between them have really stopped progress for many and Covid, in particular, has masked some fundamental problems which are now holding back the British economy and society and still many people there have no idea really. Covid has caused European economies many issues too and Brexit has not been without costs for some EU based industries.

As bad as Brexit is and as bad as the global covid pandemic is, there is another epidemic which I have felt ever more gloomy about and which connects to these two things and may be around longer and with deeper and more harmful consequences. It is the web of misinformation which is rampant across all social media platforms across the world and in some of the national press even, and gleefully shared and promoted by far too many people.

I love popular science programmes on TV. There have been some fascinating ones about the world around us, about the universe, the stars etc. Presented by attractive, knowledgeable, engaging academics, at their best they fill us with a genuine desire to understand more and they certainly give me an appreciation of just how bloody hard this stuff is. Let’s say you watch the explanation of how a black hole forms, and whilst you are watching you feel like you understand what they are saying but only about 2 sentences actually stay in your head for more than 10 minutes. Try it, try watching an entire programme and then explain properly what you just saw in detail 10 minutes later to one of your friends. The fifty-minute show will be condensed down into the 2 or 3 points you can recall with any detail or comprehension. That’s not because we are stupid or poorly education, it is because most of us haven’t got the foundation of knowledge that these scientists have built working in science day after day, over a lifetime, nor do we have the time or inclination to get anywhere near building that foundation if we are not working in those areas and talking frequently to other knowledgeable people we can learn from. We have jobs, we have families, we have other commitments

So why on earth do people think they are suddenly pandemic experts because they read some blog by an ex weather forecaster who says it’s all a plot by Bill Gates. Why do they think someone whose credentials are related to psychotherapy is going to be absolutely right in direct contradiction to a scientific consensus of renowned virologists? How many peer-reviewed scientific papers has this person read? Do they understand them? Of course, they don’t, they have read a blog by someone who has picked out one or two things from a paper, removed all the context and presented a skewed and inaccurate or unevidenced conclusion. How is some Instagram celebrity more influential on medical matters than experts from WHO, people who have spent their careers dealing with epidemics around the world? Why should I, having spent years running a business and knowing every intricate detail of it, be cowed by a random on the internet who has never employed so much as a tea bag, telling me I am completely wrong over some detail on business, or some expected consequence of business-related government policies.

We have seen it again and again, one day the same accounts are supply chain experts, the next day the news shifts and they are experts on viruses, the next day they are experts on farming and fishing, the following day they are experts on 5g masts, wind farms, solar energy, racism and on and on and on. Really? These accounts claim to be ordinary people, it’s amazing they have time to do their ordinary job given the amount of reading they would have to do just to understand one of these things in depth. Of course, the suspicion is that many are not real and the accounts are created to bring fuel to the conversation, making it appear that some contentious idea is more popularly held than it is, the agenda being to therefore make it more popularly held. The public are being manipulated to the point that if the right celebrity stated that day was in fact night and the fact we can see the sun was a symptom of mass hysteria, there would be arguments breaking out all over the social media sites about this. The film “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix is a perfect satire of this alarming world we currently live in. I found it funny, because the people are so preposterous, and at the same time terrifying because I could actually imagine it happening for real and you could argue that it’s a very good allegory for the attitudes over climate change where there is still a minority unwilling to accept that there is anything wrong and behaviours must change in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.

So, what can we do to battle this fake stuff? Well personally I try to ignore as many nonsense posts as I can. Life is too short to end up in bizarre circular unproductive Facebook arguments. We must all learn to scroll past more, me included. It’s the arguments which feed the algorithms which show us the nonsense even more.

Sometimes it’s hard to resist having a laugh at the more idiotic ideas though and I think humour and satire is probably a good tactic for debunking garbage, depending on who you are ridiculing. Best not to ridicule your uncle Albert directly if you want a reasonably peaceful socially distanced family get together but by all means share a satirical post which highlights the foolishness of the post he just shared. A couple of months ago some Q anon people turned up in Dallas claiming John F Kennedy was going to come back to life that day and take over the presidency then give it to Trump. I am not sure what they said once it became clear there was going to be nobody coming back from the dead that day. I wondered what their families said to them and did they not feel totally stupid? What was thanksgiving like in their house, pitying looks from Aunt Mabel whilst the teenage cousins sniggered at them in the corner? That’s the problem with false prophets, much like Boris Johnson’s government they rarely keep their promises and you are left high and dry trying to defend or reverse the position you had defended so staunchly.

We are not helped by leading politicians around the world, not so stupid fools who were underestimated at some point and therefore through complacency of sensible people, ended up leading entire countries and have embraced the idea of social media to peddle the false information and lies that feeds their followers. Populism has been thriving as these leaders have misused and manipulated the more direct connection that SM platforms give them along with the use of data to maximise this, to build rather dubious but lucrative power base. Let’s not forget the president of the United States even used Twitter and Facebook as, amongst other things, a means to question a democratic result and propagated the lie that the election was stolen through his fan base creating a violent fury amongst them. Here is the clearest example that the consequences of these things do not stop in the virtual world. If keyboard warriors remained just at their keyboard we wouldn’t have so much of a problem. The storming of the Capitol was beamed on TV screens everywhere and, to much of the world, was both terrifying and unfathomable. In the end US democracy was strong enough to hold despite the efforts which had been made and continue to be made by men and women of the far right to undermine it. In the UK and across Europe we most also hold back the attacks on our democracies and we cannot do that until we stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated by groundless unsourced online pulp fiction. We do have to take our voting responsibilities seriously. If you want sensible politicians who tell you the fundamental truth, that complex problems require complex solutions, you have to vote for them, you have to show support for them and vote for them and vote!

There have always been cults and small groups of people who believe crazy things but has there ever been more channels for them to spread their misinformation and has there ever been so many leaders of mainstream democracies willing to use these channels to further their own dodgy agendas. Media sites must stop paying lip service to all this and take responsibility for what is published on their channels just like any other magazine, newspaper, or book. Governments too must accept responsibility. There is a lot of political talk in Europe about how to deal with social media misuse, I sincerely hope it comes to something meaningful and look forward to seeing and thinking about the ideas that come through. Social Media, just like any other industry, will not regulate themselves effectively, they need some legislation of some kind to force them into behaving responsibly and mitigate against false information and maybe if the countries of the EU can get to grips with this successfully, other countries will follow the lead. Traditional press and TV media must play their part. In competition with online media sites, there is far too much clickbait used which feeds the Polarisation of Views Monster.

So, 2022, what do I want from you? Well like everyone else I want to see Covid going away for good. But just as much I want to see solutions to the social media paradox. There is so much good which comes from a digital world connecting people, so many benefits that we have all gained. Would we have got through the last 2 years without being able to connect remotely to each other for example? It would really be a massive negligence, criminal in fact, if our societies do not get to grips with the idea of mitigating against the misuse and abuse of social media perpetrated by powerful people with dubious agendas because in the end the rest of us will pay a very heavy price for their thirst for power.

Happy New Year.

Waves of Officialdom

When I was 8 or thereabouts, my mother and I went on an extended trip to Spain to stay with my grandmother and to see my aunts and uncles and cousins. In those days, flying was rather more expensive than it is now. I know people were already going on package holidays to Benidorm and so on, but if you wanted to go on a scheduled flight to a non-touristic region of Spain, the flights were not readily available or they were very expensive. Spain was not, at that point, an EU member. So, we took a passage on a big Spanish cruise liner called the Monte Granada from Liverpool to Vigo in Galicia. I don’t remember the ship being very crowded. I think it must have been heading on to do a cruise in the Mediterranean and that is why we were able to book the short 2-day passage. It was winter, around December.

Despite it being a very large ship, we had a terrible crossing. The Bay of Biscay did its notorious Bay of Biscay nauseous-making thing and there were no anti sickness tablets available. We had a tiny cabin with no window. The winter seas and cold stormy weather did not really endear me to ships or sailing much, I guess 2 days just is not long enough to get your sea legs.

With considerable relief and empty stomachs, we got to Vigo and went through all the customs palaver at the other end. I remember everyone had to go in a big room, more like a bit of warehouse, with long dark wooden tables and we had to open our suitcases ready for the dour customs inspectors barking orders to come along with their chalk. We only had our clothes so there was no fuss with us, but it seemed to take a long time for customs man to get to us.

With that done, we were free to go happily into the arms of my mother’s twin sister, my Tía Ester, who had come to meet us at Vigo, and we travelled together to Santiago de Compostela by train. Ester’s husband worked for the railways, so they didn’t even have a car, they always used trains.

I cannot remember how long we stayed in Spain– it seems to me we were there about 6 weeks, and I have vague memories of meeting a dizzying array of barely recognisable relatives of one kind or another who I had only ever seen in fuzzy black and white pictures. Certain people stuck with me but my grandmother was the eldest of 13 children so there seemed to be an awful lot of tías and tíos and primos, many of whom I have never met since so I couldn’t tell you their names. My Tía Herminda with her purple coloured poodle probably deserves a mention though. Keeping all the relationships between them straight was not a vital task for an 8-year-old but there was a lot of boring grown up conversation about people I didn’t know in places I had never been to that I probably tuned out of. However, I loved playing with my younger cousins and second cousins and visiting the feria with its colourful lights and noisy vendors in the beautiful Alameda in Santiago, eating hot churros con chocolate on the cold winter nights.

The time went by and we had Christmas there which was lovely but before I knew it, it was time to leave. So, we got back on the ship at Vigo for the two-day journey. My mind turned to seeing my dad and brothers again and I was very happy to be homeward bound.

On the morning we arrived at Liverpool, we were not allowed to get off the ship until we were given permission. I was used to translating for my mother sometimes. I had absorbed English like a native speaker so when my parents came up against something bureaucratic or difficult, my teenage brothers and I were able to help. That day it was only me, my brothers and dad were waiting on the quayside for us to disembark.

Two customs officials took us into a room on the ship. I could sense my mother’s fear and confusion, but I don’t think I cried. They were asking questions, I cannot remember what, probably about where we were from, when we came to the UK and that kind of thing. They had taken our documents off us and I remember being gripped with fear, longing to get off that boat and see my dad again. I helped my mother answer the questions. We were there a long time and then one of the men made a phone call from the office we were in and we had to wait for a while longer.

It turns out my mum had renewed her Spanish passport but the indefinite leave to remain stamp had not been put in the new passport and she had forgotten her expired one so the immigration officers had to establish our status, whether we were allowed to return to our home. For an eight-year-old, having two giant men in grey suits and solemn long pale faces question my mother through me was a terrifying experience. I understand that they couldn’t have done it any other way, but it was my first experience of a wall of officialdom. Even at eight I had the complete instant understanding that our fate was totally in the hands of these two strange men. If they had not been able to check their records or if there was a mistake in those records we would have been sent somewhere – I don’t know where, some kind of holding centre, and sent away from our nuclear family. Thankfully, this did not happen, and we were finally allowed off the ship to find Dad as relieved and worried as we were on the quayside. I think the whole family were very upset.

I didn’t realise how much this experience had affected me for a long time. I never talked about it until it came out unexpectedly as an adult in the course of a conversation and I recalled the fear and stress. But in truth I have always had a deep underlying fear and dislike of figures of officialdom especially immigration officers. Strangers with powers over your life still worry me. When going through Miami airport once I was stopped and made to wait in a big room full of people whilst immigration made some checks. My name had come up as a partial match to someone they were looking for and they had to verify my identity before I could continue my journey. I found the whole thing very distressing and as soon as it was over, and we could leave I burst into tears. I hadn’t done anything wrong, it was just the tension of having people with power over your life that got me again and perhaps transported me back to that office on a ship when I was 8 and I wondered if I would ever see my dad again.

So, when I see the pictures of refugees, particularly children, I really do feel pain for them. Can you imagine being them? They probably do not speak much English; they have been pushed around and made to pay every penny they had to try and escape to a place where they can find healing. They must be terrified as they have gone from person to person in their lives who has tried to seize control of their futures. Whether politics or war or poverty, their lives have been made insufferable enough to seek something better. They have been taken advantage of by criminals, had their or their families meagre savings swiped. They end up on a windy British beach with nothing except their lives which they are lucky to have kept and the clothes they stand in being filmed by privileged idiots like Nigel Farage.

They will then have to go through the long stressful procedures to establish whether they can stay or whether they must go back to their hell. I was lucky, if our paperwork had not been in order, I had family to return to. These refugee children may not have anybody, or anything left to go back to.

Having negotiated all that, if their claims are successful they may well have a lifetime of being stopped and questioned by immigration officers when they go on their holidays and each time, despite the fact they are legal and have done nothing wrong, that knot in their stomach will be there somewhere. When the children learn enough English – which won’t be long believe me, they will see and understand the likes of drunken Tory MPs on Newsnight ranting about how the government should send the navy out (to do what bully them, shoot them?) to deal with these poor desperate souls in boats and they will wonder why their parents spent everything to had to come here to a place where people hate them without even knowing them, without knowing their story.

Remember those pictures of the children removed from parents in the USA and put in cells in big warehouses? That distressed me beyond words, and I fear for the lifelong damage that this policy may have caused these children.

Those immigration officers who I met with all those years ago were, I am sure, very professional and kind, I can’t really remember that because all that stayed with me is the fear, the instant understanding that those people were more powerful than I was and could decide on something that could hurt me. For those children who have already gone through dangerous sea crossings or long and thirsty and hungry walks through the desert, the distress of understanding that must be horrific and, well, those children and adults, deserve our help not our hate. The far right is trying to dehumanise them again as they did in 2015, whipping up a panic that somehow British people are threatened by refugees. Do not let them. These people are humans with hearts and emotions and personal stories. Do not try and eradicate them from your reality by pretending it’s not your problem or that you should not care. We should all care. “There but for the grace of God go I”, or put it another way, there but for our privilege and good luck go any one of us.

@redalphababe

Righting the Wrongs of 16.

Righting the Wrongs, fixing what’s right
We are still here to fight the good fight
Defiance still shines, your lies can’t be hid
Whilst we use our voice to lift off the lid

We watch and we wait for truth to be clear
To be once again what people hold dear
The light will be shining and as the scales fall
Our people will come home on hearing our call

To examine reality, to see what we know
That is inevitable, make no mistake. Go
to the lengths you desire to hide your intent
Spend as much as you like
Make a bridge, build a tent

to keep out the light from the masses that matter
you can’t do it forever. Hurt makes a clatter
as it grips peoples hearts where anxiety dwells
So the wave of real life will roll and swell
And crash on the sand that your house is built on
Wash away the turrets towers and cons

We will be waiting. If you are right
there is nothing to worry about, the unicorns will alight
from their gilded carriages and all will gain
But if you are wrong we will feel the pain
of our friends and our families our children, husbands and wives
The impacts and consequence over their lives

We will be waiting to heal their mistake
To right the wrongs of the liberties you take
To put back the rights you have taken away
To restore the freedoms and stop foul play

We don’t yet know how or when or where
But we’ve time on our side, your clock is already there
with the alarm going off soon. Everyone will hear.
Where exactly you want to steer.
Your dream will be transparent and we will all see.
What reality is, how painful it will be

We will protect the Wronged. We will right the wrongs
We will shine a light on the snake oil and cons
All the distractions and dead cats you throw our way
Will never remove our love. Our resolve will stay.

@redalphababe
.

Imagine Revisited.

A little while back I imagined a positive and negative outcome to this whole Brexit shambles. I was asked to revisit this. I have to be honest I have found this difficult, seeing the intense mistruths being spread by Boris Johnson and his party in this extremely dirty election campaign has made it difficult to feel anything other than dismay and fear. Boris Johnson has run a campaign where he has evaded scrutiny, promised a few crazy things to buy people and threw out the soundbites one after the other and I am fearful that the British public are buying his nonsense. But here are my two scenarios. Let’s look at the bad stuff first.

It’s the 31 December 2020. Boris Johnson got a majority in the general election of 2019. The dirtiest election ever, every trick in the book and then some was employed and thrown at the public during the campaign – fake tweets, fake websites, doubling down on lies by Johnson and his cronies. Johnson kept just bouncing back in the polls like a great yellow beach ball that someone had drawn a vacant face with a smile on, vacant because his manifesto was so vacuous and his soundbites so fake. Sadly arguments between the other party activists got in the way of the campaign for tactical voting which was being promoted by Pro EU activists across the country.

With a majority in parliament, having replaced all his honourable One Nation Tories and Remain MPs with shiny new Super Brexity Tory MPs willing to do absolutely anything because they wanted to get a job in government, the withdrawal agreement was passed. The biggest lie “Get Brexit Done” has proven to be a bit tricky. The free trade agreement with the EU is not in place and as of midnight the country essentially has no more arrangements, on anything except airspace. The transition arrangements end, and the country has paid an absolute fortune in No-deal planning. The Business community are furious and rather wishing they had not fallen for the scaremongering about a minority labour government. Meanwhile talks have been ongoing with the US administration. The control of drug pricing is still on the table though Johnson refuses to admit this. No deal is in sight yet.

The continuing uncertainty has not been good for business. Anxiously watching the news every day at the slow progress of the terms of access to trade with the EU, directors and CEOs everywhere who had not already triggered contingencies last year have taken this transition period to do so. The promised growth has not come. Tax receipts are down so the money tree has wilted and died.

The Tory No-deal Architects are about to get their way. Their hedge fund investments betting against the economy and currency speculations have been very rewarding so they are smiling to themselves when they get up in the morning. They know the next step will be a rowing back of regulation in the labour market in order to try and make us more competitive in a world with no trade deals to speak of. Their plans are coming on nicely.

The pound has been all over the place as, the reality is we are no closer to knowing much about our future relationships with any of the big players. There were some deals rolled over by countries such as the Faroe Islands. Prices have continued to increase. Small Business is worried about the impending difficulty in getting supplies as our trading arrangements have failed to materialise and we are coming to the deadline. Johnson with his majority has made some constitutional changes which are making protest against the government difficult, they introduced legislation to stop governments being taken to court by citizens trying to make constitutional challenges.

Parliament still must talk about Brexit every day. The Russia report was never published by some government sleight of hand and most of the police enquiries into the 2016 referendum have now been kicked into the long grass. EU27 citizens have left in droves to live their lives somewhere they feel welcome.

Some things haven’t changed. There are still people living in tents in shop doorways. There are still food banks. Disabled and sick people are still being badly assessed for PIP. Wages are not going up in line with living costs. The NHS has not been able to address any of its staff shortage problems. The Care System sees no end in sight. The new immigration rules are not helping to get their positions filled from anywhere in the world when migrants can do better elsewhere. The brain drain is still a thing. There were 5 football grounds built in the regions to the trumpeting of Johnson and the viability reports are still being carried out on 6 hospitals.

Racism is still alive and well. The far right now has representation in parliament via a Tory party which had already started its journey to the right long before this point. There are no unicorns here.

The news every night is still about Brexit. Why did we Brexit? What will happen next? How is the government going to solve the no-deal crisis at the end of transition? What about the supply problems? When are we going to see a stronger pound? When is the USA going to give us a deal? How many years of negotiations are ahead of us?

Government ministers fill our screens with the tired Brexit soundbites and keep repeating the mantra that this is the will of the people.

Nobody with any power is talking about climate change any more.

We clink our glasses to see the new year in with heavy hearts and fear about the continuing degradation of our political system which has completely forgotten it’s there to solve our problems not to make them for us.

The political shitshow continues.

It’s all a nightmare, right? Well now don’t just imagine but visualise this instead!

It’s the 31st of December 2020.

On the 12^th December 2019 people finally got the message that they needed to find a path to end Brexit and it wasn’t going to be the shamelessly mendacious Tory plan. Activists from across parties worked together to get rid of Brexiter Candidates across the country. Wherever the constituency looked like it would benefit from Tactical voting, pro EU activists campaigned for the Remain/Peoples Vote candidate who could win, regardless of party. Dominic Grieve won back his seat as an independent.

Labour won but needed to get the cooperation of other parties to be able to form a government. Lib Dems, SNP and Greens all agreed they would work with Labour within a loose alliance arrangement and not a coalition. They allowed Labour to go to the EU. The deal that came back was basically May’s withdrawal agreement with customs union alignment and a form of access to the single market.

Labour kept their promise to have a referendum, their new idea of how to leave versus remain. Parliament agreed the terms of the referendum and we had a very tough and comprehensive nationwide examination and direct comparison of the deal being proposed to leave and our existing EU membership. The forces that tried to steal the votes in 2016 were still there but we were ready for them. Realities were laid bare. False information on both sides was dealt with by broadcasters with proper challenge. Young voters engaged and supported the campaigns. Remain won the argument and the referendum, after some important rules around online campaigning and paid for advertising were imposed. The people of the UK had had enough and wanted Brexit to end so they voted to make it end! They wanted investment in services, and housing and financial growth to be the centre of the political attention once more.

Article 50 was duly revoked. Parliament immediately launched a wide-ranging consultation process trying to determine with communities around the country what initiatives were needed in the regions to improve the lives of all our people.

A few thousand angry people turned up to protest in London after article 50 was revoked whipped up by Farage etc. There were pockets of nastiness, but the numbers weren’t big enough to stop the overwhelming majority of citizens around the country from heaving a huge sigh of relief.

The pound soared back upwards. The FTSE stabilised and strengthened steadily. Companies engaged in plans to invest in the future knowing where we were going. Brexit is no longer on the news every night. Structural problems in various industrial sectors can be viewed and addressed by business with clarity, without the constant white noise of Brexit interfering with their thinking.

There was a huge media feature on homelessness. The Government announced a cross party initiative to address the issues of housing needs in the UK. There is work being done on how to improve economic growth, training and recruitment in the NHS and social care and they are once again busy talking about inequality, equality in the workplace, taxation and foreign policy. Parliament is working actively on all the issues which affect people’s lives.

Our MPs now see more normal post bags and can concentrate on helping their individual constituents more effectively. The feeling of constant division has been removed in our political environment despite a minority government relying on working cross party to operate. There are still some extremely abusive emails, but these are now easy to report and ignore. Politicians report they are also getting many more thoughtful letters on a wide range of issues, as more people have woken up to political engagement and want to communicate with their MPs to make their communities and country better.

Yes, many people were and still are angry and they threaten never to vote again. But as the weeks go on, and people around them are starting to smile again and they don’t hear the word Brexit on the news and new jobs are announced as firms feel able to invest in expansion plans instead of contingency plans, they start to feel secretly relieved too. They laugh at the satirical jokes along with everybody else and they don’t know it yet, but this time next year they will quietly wonder why they voted to leave the EU in the first place.

The racists are still there of course, but the unexpected power that Brexit gave them has been undermined. Their voices are still loud, but their platform is broken. The toxic right of politics is still attracting certain kinds of people whose view of the world is narrow, but as the population ages, just as with the Conservatives, their most fertile and effective audience at the ballot box will decline. We are starting to patch up the damage done to our relationships with the EU27 citizens amongst us who have been treated so appallingly.

The EU is doing work on the climate change crisis. We are proudly playing our part in that with our partners. Via the EU we are also continuing to address the problems of Tax Evasion and money laundering. The Revoke decision has given a new sense of energy and hope to the progressive parties and their voters right across the EU. Politicians are keen to embrace the optimism. The British public are better informed now about what the EU does and are communicating with our MEPS more. MEPS of all parties are now being asked on news programmes whereas previously they were all ignored apart from Nigel Farage.

Life is getting back to normal but a new mass of motivated, politically engaged, intelligent people, experienced in campaigning for change are looking at ways they can support our democratic systems so the entire population is better represented in parliament and populist extremes cannot be foisted on us again. We must remain alert to the continuing dangers of the far right and nationalism across the world.

We clink our glasses to see the new year in with a profound sense of relief and hope. We are optimistic for the future. We see the battles are not over, they never will be, but we understand now that complacency is the biggest enemy and our generation will not make this mistake again. We must no longer look away from our problems home or away but seek to solve them together.

That’s more like it.

Imagine this, visualise this, make it happen. Use your vote wisely on Thursday and make it count. Check your constituency. Tactical Voting may help you deny a Tory majority. We have too much to lose not to try.

polling station iso

Letter from the EU No 2

Dear Friends.

I thought it was time for a catch up. We have been travelling for nearly 3 weeks now in Eric our lovely motorhome. Eric has looked after us well though we got into a bit of a scrape in a Lidl when we caught the roof with the roof of a parking place. No harm done just a little embarrassment. We have travelled down through France into the North of Spain and then down through Portugal.

Having entered Spain from France with not much of a fanfare, we had set our route on non-toll roads and we had a couple of lovely days in San Sebastian also known as Donostia in Basque. We wild camped in Leon for a night and decided to press on to Santiago de Compostela which was an important stop in Galicia for me. We had booked 3 days in a campsite in the city.

Santiago de Compostela is the city of my birth. I have few memories of that place, given I was an infant when my family left, but I do have some pictures in my head from visits there and I cling to them. Our memories are part of what makes us who we are. They keep our feet on the ground and our memories of love comfort our hearts and give strength to us in times of our greatest need.

camino

As we got closer to the city, we could see from the motorhome more and more pilgrims walking along El Camino, the walk of Saint James. They strode along the paths mostly alone, easily recognisable in the big waterproof hooded capes over their bodies and rucksacks and carrying the sticks. Some had the traditional tall stick to help them along the way, whilst some used the more up to date Nordic walking sticks. I wondered with each pilgrim what their story was. Why were they alone on a track on a rainy day in November? What were they looking for? There were so many more walkers than I expected to see. I imagined a multitude of personal lives, all strangers but united by their common physical goal but with different spiritual agendas. Were these people on their lone walk driven by grief or love? A businessman escaping the rat-race. A woman looking to lay down the burden of a painful divorce. A priest drained by the lives of pain of his flock seeking a reaffirmation of his faith, a spiritual rebirth to excite and restore his weary jaded bones so he had something left to share out. A vane politician, a puffed-up peacock in all the gear, doing something interesting he could write about in his memoirs to make him look good. A woman determined to challenge herself physically as she never had before. A young man of the Instagram Generation taking photos and selfies at each marker which displays the shell, the symbol that the pilgrims follow.

The city sprawled ahead of us and we found our way to the campsite and without further ado walked to the old town and the Cathedral. As soon as saw the stone arches and cobbled streets of the old town, it all felt hugely familiar. I was delighted to recognise one of the roads and a café in front of the Alameda (park) which I think was there when my grandmother was alive. We ate mussels and drank wine there as the barmen chattered to each other animatedly moaning about their families.

The following day, we set off to look for the street where I was born. As we walked down a road, I glanced around and knew I had been there before. It was the market and being a Saturday morning we went to have a look. The market thronged with colourful loud chattering Gallegos. It is made up of corridors with stalls on each side. Each corridor was devoted to a theme. Fish, Meat, Vegetables. Women barked out questions to the fishmongers and men stood in the middle chattering to each other about football. Our mouths watered as we strolled through the crowds and smelled the freshness of all the produce. The octopus red and plump, the fish shining and bright eyed, the cheeses creamy and delicious, the bread and cake stall surrounded by excited children waiting to choose a bun.

market

Part of my DNA belongs in this market. My Grandmother, my Abuela, brought up my mother and aunt alone and made her living by trading in Padron Peppers, buying them from the farmers coming in from the country and doing deals with the stall holders. Not so much city trader but definitely trading in a city. It helped her pay the bills and put food on the table at a time when being a woman alone was not easy.

We were delighted, on turning the corner to find an entire hallway with bars and kitchens, and signs inviting people to buy their produce from the market, and have it cooked by these fine chefs. There were many people taking up the offer, big family groups and groups of twenty somethings crowded around the tables eating clams and drinking wine and beer.

I felt slightly sad that for various reasons we had grown so separate from this city, from this region having moved to the UK. I guess there was no internet and no Facebook, no cheap flights, so families that migrated were less able to keep their links intact as the older generations died. I vowed that I would spend some time tracking down family members and arrange a longer trip to visit them.

The market and the memories I had tapped into were almost more exciting than finding the house of my birth which, with a little whatsapping with my brother, I finally found. I was slightly disappointed to realise the front façade had been changed, as, in my imagination I could still see my Grandmothers front balcony stuffed full of colourful flowers in pots.

We topped off the day with a visit to the inside of the cathedral. Now, I will just have to come back because there is a massive renovation going on so much of the inside is covered in scaffold though you can still visit the apostle’s crypt. The pilgrims were numerous here as traditionally they end their walk embracing the reputed remains of Saint James of the city title.

st james

The other great tradition was the Botafumeiro which is basically a giant incense burner which priests swing over the heads of the congregation on the end of a rope. I saw it as a child and stood looking at the altar and closed my eyes so I could conjure up the smell and the sounds in my mind. The Botafumeiro cannot operate whilst the renovation is going on, so a revisit is on the cards in the next couple of years.

The most interesting aspect of the city is the sounds. Gallegos talk loudly, laugh together loudly. When I was growing up in the UK, my friends used to ask me what I was arguing with my mother about in Spanish. I didn’t know what they were talking about. We weren’t arguing we were just talking. This entire city was filled with people just talking.

cathedral

I felt the history of my Abuela in this place of my birth as we strolled through the Alameda and admired the benches and fountains which I recognised from my childhood. I am a child of Europe, it lives in me and is an important part of what made me. This makes me happy.

@redalphababe

Letter from the EU No 1

Dear Friends,

This is our 7th day since we set off from Chester for some new experiences around the EU27 whilst we have the flexibility and chance to do so. Other Half (from hereon in known as OH) bought a motorhome and persuaded me to go out of my comfort zone and set off travelling in a very cramped space for a while. We must work on the move, but we can still do this for now. As you know I have been campaigning for a Peoples Vote and to remain in the EU and was reluctant to commit to this, but I am running out of energy and thought some inspiring distractions might be just the thing to revive my strength. OH insisted I name the motorhome, I think he thought, like a cute dog or pig or something, I would be more attached to it if it had a name, so I christened our 15-year-old Rapido motorhome Eric. We lived on a smallholding for twenty years and had various forays with livestock and anything we named always became a pet and lived until their old age in total splendour under our care.

We wanted to leave the UK before the 31st October just in case there were issues if Boris Johnson had got his way either with or without a deal so on Thursday 24th off we went. I think I need to confess to you my foolishness the day before our planned leaving date which nearly derailed the whole thing. I have been trying to learn how to ride a bike. Yes, I know. For reasons which I won’t go into here, I just never got a bike when I was a kid. I have managed my whole life without feeling I missed out but OH encouraged me to give it a go as it would make things easier if we could cycle from campsites to points of interest etc.

Anyway, on the eve of our departure I was trying to cycle to the motorhome and somehow despite going incredibly slowly I braked too hard and managed to fall like a ridiculous sack of potatoes over and to the side head-first. I still don’t know how I did it, but I looked like an idiot. As I fell down, I banged my head, broke my new glasses which promptly put a massive gash on my head. 4 hours later I came out of A& E with several stitches above my eye. Favourite Son who is currently away travelling himself, said “Mum, you will do anything to get out of going in a caravan”. OH growled “It’s not a caravan, it’s a luxury Motorhome”. Do you think motorhomes are a bit metropolitan elite? The favoured practice of using other facilities wherever you can instead of the toilet in the vehicle reminds me of when I was a little child and lived in a house with an outside toilet.

Somehow, (unlike Boris Johnson as it turns out) we still managed to leave as planned the following morning for Folkestone then the channel tunnel for France albeit with my old glasses perched on my nose. I had a conversation with a local musician passing by who stopped to admire Eric and immediately gave me lots of useful advice having used many motorhomes when touring. I think there is a community out there. The rule of the road seems to be to wave to other motorhomers. I have never had so many waves since the days when I drove around in an ancient Alfa Romeo Spider, an instant head turner.

I have to say, although it’s only been a week, on the whole living in a small space has been much easier to deal with than I expected. It’s just like being in a very small hotel room. We have managed not to completely fall out or trip over each other and there has been only a little tiny bit of hissing and snapping from me. We realised quickly organisation is everything and I am so bad at the tidiness thing, but you really do have to put things away immediately. On the nights we are in campsites with facilities we have made use of the washing and power facilities and planned for the nights of wild camping by making sure our devices are charged on route. If you are ever doing this, a couple of apps are useful, Park4Night where people post good places to stop with reviews and comments and the ACSI app which also gives you discounts in the off season at their campsites if you join. How did people do this before internet existed? It almost feels like cheating to be looking every night to find a spot to camp at the following night.

We had a little mishap with a kerb when leaving the petrol station at one point and poor old Eric has a little scratch at the bottom ofthe door. If bad news comes in threes, only one more mishap to go, or perhaps I can count the announcement of a general election as number three.

Anyway, here we are on night 7. We have got as far as a beautiful spot called L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer as a stopover on the way to Bordeaux. The beaches are beautiful here. My impressions of France so far have been to wonder with awe at the amount of space here. Wide roads and huge fields. We have gone through flat country all the way so far. We were in a public park with a stunning quadrant of silver birches in rows, which reminded me of my row of silver birches in our old garden we made in Mid Wales now hopefully as tall and strong and being enjoyed by the current owners.

We have seen quite a lot of wildlife, in particular some stunning birds, a couple of which I have managed to photograph today so I can identify them. Also, I have been amazed at how much industry there is. Factories and manufacturing plants, engineering firms and machinery plants galore in virtually every town we go past. We have stayed away from motorways where we can so we can get a true flavour of the landscape and I have been impressed. The other observation from the towns and cities we have stopped in has been the great care shown for the look of things. Even supermarkets are carefully designed and arranged with little design touches in the lighting etc. The public spaces in Nantes where immaculately presented. I am looking forward to a few days around Bordeaux to explore the area a little as I expect more of the same and hopefully, we can take in some art (and wine) too.

I guess I can’t end this letter without broaching the question of politics back home. I am still doing my twitter accounts though this first week away, I hope you can forgive me, but I have taken a little step back as a mini holiday. I was shocked and disappointed that Labour decidedto go for a general election after members of the shadow cabinet stood on thatstage on Saturday 19th October in London and, as my friend described it, kissed our arses. They promised they would support a referendum, that we inspired them to fight, but here we are instead, worrying about a general election. I guess that was taken out of our hands and it’s hard not to be angry.

But as always, we must face things as they are. There is only one question for me which is important when deciding on tactical voting, well two really. What is the candidate’s personal pledge on Brexit and how do we keep the pro Brexiters out of the seat? That’s the most important thing, get the Remain Candidate in, keep the Brexit-at-all-Costs candidate out regardless of party politics. Some of us may have to hold our noses and set aside our anger and irritation with politicians who promised us support but let us down at the 11th hour.

At the end of the day we were hampered by 19 labour MPs and umpteen daft Tory MPs absolutely determined to ignore the Remain movement and actual facts. Well I have news for them, there was a million of us on the streets of London on the 19th of October. We did that. We organised that. We have a nationwide network of seasoned and now very experienced activists, passionate about our cause. We have been up against it from the start but let’s see what we can achieve with a massive effort to get our vote out, get the young vote registered and out and get Remain or Pro Peoples Vote MPs into the house of commons speaking for the growing remain majority in the UK. Remember, like my silly bicycle tumble at the start of this trip, when we started this #Remain journey together, we were laughed at. Nobody is laughing at us now as on this Halloween we celebrate our THIRD Not-Leaving-the-EU Day within the last 12 months. Happy Not Leaving the EU day everybody.

Yours

@redalphababe

The Curious Death of the Sunlit Uplands.

I wrote this for Chester for Europe on release of the so-called Yellowhammer document by Government

The government, under duress of the Humble Address Motion, have published an Operation Yellowhammer document. We have put it here for you to read in full. There are a few salient things I feel we must point out.

The title of the document is “Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions”. The document is identical to that leaked to the press a month ago and the journalists who saw the leaked document say it’s title was “Base Scenario”. In other words, this was the expected set of consequences of falling out of the EU without a deal and that is why they should be planned for. Tom Gordon here provides with some evidence by comparing the copy which which went to the Scottish Government

Spot the difference: Scottish Govt's copy of Yellowhammer says it's a 'base scenario', while UK Govt's says it's a 'reasonable worst case'.
Scottish Govt says it's 'puzzling' and 'curious' pic.twitter.com/kecKSlt5wH
— Tom Gordon (@HTScotPol) September 12, 2019

Paragraph 15 Has been redacted. Comparison by a journalist saw the leaked document says the paragraph says

“15. Facing EU tariffs makes petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability but UK Government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans. This leads to significant financial losses and announcement of two refinery closures (and transition to import terminals) and direct job losses (about 2000). Resulting strike action at refineries would lead to disruptions to fuel availability for 1-2 weeks in the regions directly supplied by the refineries.”

Would this closed refinery include Stanlow, we ask? Not only will our area be at risk from the closures and company moves linked to the Just In Time problems as a third country, Stanlow may be at risk too. That’s a lot of jobs in Cheshire at risk for no benefit.

This document is little more than an executive summary with no detail at all. No information on what the measures are to mitigate these things. Why have they not provided any of that detail at all?

For example, examine paragraph 20. It informs us of the impact on the adult social care sector. The Upshot is within 4-6 months we will see social care providers closing as Brexit affects an already fragile sector with insufficient staff and no margins to play with. When these companies shut their doors, who will look after the individual adults affected? Where are they going to go? Where will we get staff to look after them? It also presents questions such as, if there is less social provision, will bed blocking become an even bigger problem than it is now? We have no idea how the government have answered any of these obvious questions from this document.

We now know Project fear is Project Clear. If these scenarios were not likely why would our public servants be spending our time and money on this. We know they are and planning for food shortages, delays at ports, job losses, business closures, It’s all there in black and white in this short document. Don’t be fooled by the business=like, sanitised tone.

The starkest warning is in paragraph 17 and represents a warning we have been giving since we started campaigning.

“Low income groups will be disproportionately affected by any price rises in food and fuel”.

The title change demonstrates an attempt to downplay, remove the scary words in our heads but where are the spreadsheets and tables and figures and mitigation details? At any rate they have not been able to hide the fact that they have confirmed everything remain campaigns have been saying for 3 years about the dangers of Brexit and no-deal Brexit in particular.

Let me ask you this final question before you read the full document, if this is the worst case scenario, why have they not printed the Best Case Scenario? If I wanted to ease peoples minds or show the benefits of no-deal and why I thought it was a valid way for the country to go I would do that. Wouldn’t you? The government has not done that. There is no cost benefit analysis. Its all costs and no benefits.

I am sorry to report the Sunlit Uplands of Brexit were dead and buried a considerable time ago and this document proves it. Mr Sunlit and Mrs. Uplands never really existed except in the minds and personal bank balances of the Brextremist Glitterati.

The TakeOver – Don’t Wait too Long,

Without a doubt, we are seeing that the entryism into the Conservative Party by Brexit party and UKIP supporters, to push through the ERG and its agenda for the hardest of hard Brexits, has now taken hold.

How can Conservative MPs stand by and watch 21 of their colleagues, some of whom are extremely well respected across the country beyond party allegiances, be summarily ejected from their own party and feel forced to stand down from their jobs. How can they stand to do and say nothing? What is a party for if it is no longer reflecting a set of values which you can subscribe to. Even his own brother has felt compelled to remove himself from responsibility for what is being done.

Jess Phillips MP accused MPs of complaining in the tea rooms whilst saying nothing where it counts. Some of these same Tories consistently take every opportunity to attack their labour colleagues for splits and other problems and failures in the opposition party but now when their own BIG test has come, they have failed, failed failed.

Any Tory MP against No-deal who does not speak out now against what Johnson/Cummings are doing – successfully completing the takeover of the authoritarian-loving , populist right of the party, fail to fill the primary duties of their public office. Even if they don’t consider putting country first, they are not even putting their own party first. They are aiding and abetting it’s metamorphosis into something much darker and alien to the genuine values of moderates everywhere.

This is a warning you must heed. When you have given your tacit approval with your silence to what is being done in your name, further down the line you may come to a point you cannot,with clear conscience, cross to follow your leader, and you will feel compelled to speak out and take a stand. Don’t leave it too late. Soon there will be nobody to back you up or defend you. There will be nobody left with any power to speak out for you!

Moreover the public, your constituents, won’t be taken in forever. Sooner or later they will ask you why you failed THEM. They will be far less polite than the man who said Please Leave My Town.

The time to speak the truth is NOW.

Where Have We Been

I watched the excellent hustings for the upcoming EU elections organised by my local pro EU group Chester for Europe in conjunction with Weaver Vale for EU and Eddisbury for EU. It was very interesting and I will probably write and tweet about the detail but as I watched I was dumbfounded to find the most thought provoking and powerful point for me came from the Conservative candidate taking part Sajjad Karim. The panel were asked what question they would pose in the hustings and he had interpreted it as a question to the audience and he said “Where have you been?”. He was of course, referring to the low turnout and lack of interest in the elections of previous years where he and the other pro EU candidates had to face rooms full of angry faragist/ukip/far right types. The anti EU crowd had been whipped up by their leaders who had spotted the public disinterest and saw the MEP route as a neat way to win political power because Westminster politics was not proving easy to conquer for their second rate politicians.

So where were we? Why did we leave a massive vacuum ready to be filled by these wannabe despots who’s tools of the trade are generating hate and anger in their followers. Farage knew what he was selling when he stood in front off that hateful poster – a nod and a wink to the racist tendencies of his target customers. He knew the groundwork had been laid already by the years of headlines and insane stories about Brussels and immigrants and refugees. The language had been carefully cultivated for so long. Gravy trains, being “ruled” by Eurocrats, regulation being “forced” on us, immigrants coming here versus expats going there, stories about bendy bananas, floor cleaner motors and lightbulbs.

Even austerity played into their hands. The worldwide financial crisis in 2008, a complex set of events, triggered across the Atlantic was boiled down and dressed up purely as frivolous overspend by the outgoing Labour government. Do you remember, we were told there were hard choices to make and we were all in it together? Suddenly there was major concern whipped up about the amount of money spent by benefits claimants. Newspaper headlines bore this perception out, printing stories about benefits cheats with lots of children, getting huge houses and spending all day being driven around in taxis whilst smoking. On TV we were subjected to poverty porn. The people inclined to the right could be outraged at the perceived fecklessness and the people inclined to the left could be outraged at the outrage of those at the right. Complex pictures of individual stories were boiled down once again into a simple binary judgement.

Some of these TV programs showed the unfortunate victims of bad housing policies by government angrily spitting at the camera about how foreigners were treated better than “our people”. A view not really challenged by the program makers directly, they would probably say it wasn’t that kind of programme. But new documentaries appeared depicting Eastern Europeans exercising their treaty rights to freedom of movement in a negative and stereotypical light mainly. Newspaper headlines pilloried Eastern Europeans and covered the refugee crisis in 2015 in the most inhuman way and crucially conflating the two issues.

The conditions were perfect. The scene was set. The shit was rolling downhill nicely. Politicians blamed the the tax paying public, who blamed the low paid public and then in the final scene before the referendum all of them blamed the weakest group, the UK residents with no vote, no political voice, working hard, paying their taxes but with no political representation.

Not only were conditions perfect for the referendum, but there was no more time to lose for the wreckers. Within another generation the majority of voters would be younger people more likely to be pro EU, being an EU citizen was as natural to them as breathing, something they took for granted. This generation don’t get their news from the tabloid papers. Thanks to work done by Labour in the 90s and noughties, they are more likely to have gone to college, so unaffected by the tabloid hate of the EU and having been educated in a more diverse environment they are far more likely to enjoy, approve of and stick with their EU citizenship.

All this time it’s true though, we were absent, we were shockingly ignorant of the in-depth workings of the EU. We took our rights for granted. We thought good sense would prevail. But with a good dose of lawbreaking and cheating along the way Leave stoked the fire of division and spoke to the dark side of people’s natures where they take no care to examine nuance and want to accept simple explanations because that’s easier than thinking or because their lives are pretty miserable anyway so they have little to lose. The architects got this toxic brexit and its associated chaos and hate filled disruption of vital Parliamentary work on things to improve the lives of the people over the line.

At the moment all I am hearing is politicians of all parties telling us it’s the fault of those of us with liberal values that we are where we are. When the ugly discussions about immigration started if we tried to point out the illogical and sometimes immoral position of those spouting anti immigration views we are told we should address peoples “legitimate views” time and again. We had years of the cries “we can’t talk about immigration” when we talked about nothing but. Are the politicians right? Was it my fault when it is they who have refused to tell people the truth? Should I have challenged every single little bit of casual racism or poverty bashing or EU bashing in my life? Well I think there is something in that and I will put my hand up to my share of responsibility on this point. Frankly though we don’t want to go around in our lives having arguments with strangers we meet who are spouting rubbish – thats what twitter is for, but we can influence those around us to grow up with responsible views stemming from critical thinking, in particular our children and families. I am proud to say I have played my part in that kind of intervention at least.

Taking our EU membership for granted is also something that i put my hand up to. Lack of proper engagement at previous EU elections for example, not informing myself more thoroughly was all a huge mistake and when I came to campaign in the 2016 referendum I could have been more effective if I had known even a fraction of what I know now. All this is on me and whether you shoulder a share of that responsibility yourselves is for you to decide.

At the same time let’s not get carried away with the gaslighting that seems to have become the way politicians deal with everything nowadays. The biggest fattest failure is that of those who we actually pay to sit in Westminster, those who represent us and make the legislation that has led us to where we are now. Sajjad Karim was right to ask the question “where were you” but actually the question should have been directed to his own party and the other parties in Westminster who have indulged and appeased the extreme right and used the EU as a convenient body to blame for their own policy failures. Even local authorities and local politicians have used the “it ain’t us guv its the EU innit” time and again. The phrase health and safety gone mad was seized on so local politicians could shrug their shoulders instead of explaining honestly and precisely why certain things are done or decided.

Where were these politicians with their clear explanations of what was being done in the name of country in the EU. I do not blame our excellent committed hard working European MEPs for a moment. They have been used and abused and ignored by their own parties particularly since 2010. I have no idea why they are even loyal to the big two parties. Because Westminster does not want to talk about the excellent work the EU does, or put it another way, the excellent work WE do with our partners in the EU, the press therefore aren’t interested.

The only party which ever puts their MEPs up on our screens is the Farage Circus, old UKIP and his latest creation, an empty hole of nothing but slogans and negativity. Even the BNP were given a platform on Question Time a few years ago. If our pro EU MEPs are not appearing on Newsnight or the 6 o’clock news regularly then why on earth would the public develop any interest in what is going on in Brussels. It becomes a black box to them, only vaguely aware that it does important stuff that affects us in the background. So when the great British public was asked to pronounce judgement on it, they only had 40 years of EU hate, negative or no coverage and no meaningful information or knowledge about what the EU is or how it works or what our MEPs do or why our right to Freedom of Movement, for example, is a terrific privilege for all of us as individuals .

If we fail to stop brexit, we are being told it will be our fault for not voting for this party or that party or splitting the vote or whatever. But you know we are doing our very best to turn back against 20 years of negative programming and powerful forces. If we fail to stop brexit it won’t be because I didn’t vote for Labour or Tory or Greens or Lib Dem or Change UK MEPS. It will be because parties and parliamentary politicians have failed us consistently in the last two years and its time they stopped blaming voters who didn’t vote leave or will not vote leave in a #finalsay referendum and looked at themselves in the mirror. What can Remain Politicians do to stop brexit? Well they can put their party aside for now and fight for a #peoplesvote and if their party won’t fight for that then they should be prepared to work with other remain parties and find a strategy which will help us. Stop blaming us and start helping us. I see the chances are diminishing of that so we are left with tactical voting in the EU elections. It’s the only thing we as Remainers can do to make sure our vote is not counted as one for a brexit party.

My parting note connected to this is on Labour. I am sorry to single them out but why are they messing about? Brexit fans will vote for the Brexit party. Why are Labour courting their vote. Remove the qualification from a confirmatory vote and Labour will find a world of delight opens up in the polls as those remainers normally inclined to vote for them heave a sigh of relief and put their x by their party on the ballot paper. Why are they producing ads and videos about bobbies on the beat for EU elections, WTAF is that all about? Labour are not trusted at the moment in remain circles given the size of the flipping table and all the options labour refuse to remove off it once and for all and they will keep bumping along with abysmal polling numbers until they earn remain trust.

Politicians, put your houses in order. We may well have to accept some responsibility for being absent in years gone by, for being passive or blind, but believe me we are paying attention now, we are present and we will bring about political change in the future so you can never divide people like this again.

Our Voting Quandary

Why would we vote for an MEP who’s stated party aim is to brexit? I am not just talking about the the two flavours of ukip. We all know what their game is. Namely, get their people in, spread hate, don’t do any work, fiddle their expenses, be a thorn in the side of the rest of the European Parliament who are there to do serious work for the benefit of the EU citizens they represent and basically con the European public (including us) out of the money which pays their salaries and pensions with no intention of doing a tap of work. They are a cheap sham, a con. No policy. Just a mishmash of also-rans and faded unsavouries seeking their 15 minutes of fame as candidates. I have nothing but contempt for them and if you have seen some of the people standing for them you will be equally contemptuous.

But looking at the other parties, well, the conservatives are the party of government. They want us out of the EU. So that’s a non starter too. What of the others? Well if the party manifesto contains the words “we respect the referendum” with no crystal clear commitment to a confirmatory vote and a remain option, is it relevant whether the candidates on their lists are personally strongly committed to the EU? Because of the D’Hondt system we can’t select particular candidates to back so party policy is the only thing we can go on initially. This is what we need to get our heads around and why we need to figure out a strategy. If the stated party policy priority is to make us brexit even under some imaginary soft brexit additions to May’s deal as yet not agreed, explained or described, despite the overwhelming evidence stacked up about cheating and damage to ordinary people, pro EU candidates and the party supporters who believe in the EU will be undermined. They must apply pressure to remove the Eurosceptic flavour of their party’s campaign.

The Remain community – now representing a growing majority, (see the poll of polls) are listening hard to what parties are saying and they will be harsh critics because they have been let down time and again by politicians and parties, the patience is incredibly fragile now. I know many of us are biding our time before we decide how we will vote.

For me, a half hearted approach to the EU elections also undermines the position of the UK as a force in the European Parliament. A missing commitment to remain or People’s Vote will inevitably raise questions from the rest of the EU as to whether the UK will ever be trusted not to dangle another sword of Damocles over its own head again at the expense and disruption of its EU parliament and the return of UKIP MkI and MkII MEPs will have the rest of the sensible parts of the European Parliament facepalming for 5 years. How can we trust what our MEPS will do to build and improve the EU if their party is trying to keep their direction constantly eurosceptic.

I admit I struggle with all this. It’s the hardest thing we have had to negotiate in our long campaign because we are fighting on two fronts, against what British Party Politics does by nature in the way parties compete with each-other and refuse to cooperate, whilst trying to lobby for a peoples vote and ultimately a remain outcome .

But the leaked Labour EU election leaflet drafts this week are the worst example I have yet seen of a supposedly non EU-hostile party completely missing the point. The EU Elections are about Europe. There is barely an acknowledgement that this is anything to do with the European Parliament. .

There is no vision in this work as to what Europe wide initiatives their party will support or drive or how they can help shape our future with regards to the environment, citizen protections, freedoms and economic cooperation with our partners. It’s almost as if whoever has written it has no idea what the EP does, or what the EU does. Which is tragic, given Labour have such wonderful Europeans standing for them. Julie Ward, Seb Dance, Richard Corbett, Theresa Griffin, Wajid Khan – all successful MEPs who have been doing their jobs representing us in the EP and, since the referendum, have been strong peoples vote campaigners ready to stand up for our future in the EU and be positive about all those things we value. Peace, freedom of movement, protection, cooperation.

These proposed leaflets are simply the same old tired dumbing down of a politics concentrated on dividing and labelling and slagging off the other side, encouraging negative voting, encouraging a protest vote. It’s depressing and parochial and lacks vision and undermines their forward thinking MEPS who we, in the remain community, consider our own regardless of party. It says ‘vote for us and forget the EU’ or ‘vote for us to tell the government you are angry’. Aren’t we in enough trouble already with that mindset? When are politicians going to stop encouraging protest votes and start leading?

I for one want to vote for parties who can demonstrate to me both their commitment to remain as EU members and also their European supporting credentials, believing that the most successful trading and political bloc in the world is a force for good in the lives of ordinary people across our beautiful continent. We may have lots of problems in Europe, there will always be problems, but we can best solve them together with cooperation and friendship and partnership. I want to return MEPs committed to our future in the EU who aren’t hampered by a party leadership which seeks to undermine them.

This criteria equally applies in my deliberations as to whether I will vote for Labour or any of the other parties. I cannot consider Labour unless they resolve their internal conflict and are unequivocal about a People’s Vote. I note as I write this the news that these shameful leaflet designs are thankfully being binned. They “forgot” to include mention of a confirmatory vote. Of course they did! (Sarcastic font). It’s a start but the clock is ticking and Labour needs to listen carefully to its members and supporters and potential supporters who are, right now, busy writing to everyone they can think of in Labour to make their views heard if they are going to be in the running for success.

I do understand the quandary of labour voters who want to remain but want to vote for their party. All I can ask is that you make it absolutely clear that you want them to support remain or that you find a way to put it on record that you are supporting the great MEPs on the list in your region and not the abysmal front bench negative attitude to the EU. We do not want Pro EU votes to be counted by others as anti EU votes as per the 2017 election narrative employed so damagingly by May, Farage et al.

So I will continue to support voter registration and turnout campaigns and I look forward to seeing the details of the Lib Dem, Green Party, ChUK and Labour manifestos so I can make my choices about who to vote for in the North West in an informed way. You can forget trying to bully me or guilt me. A vote for the Lib Dem’s or greens or TIG is not a vote for tories. That’s just nonsense. I will be keeping an eye on the information and data being analysed by remainvoter about my region because tactical voting is still on my mind as a way to go. You see, the Labour Party aren’t the only ones who are able to keep options on the table 😉.