The British Government has launched a new slogan to prepare for Brexit : Let’s Get Going. Who’d have thought that the slime bag in chief for the YooKay Michael Gove would have come up with a slogan so ideally suited to Scottish independence. Let’s get going Scotland, let’s get going from this dysfunctional incoherent mess of a Conservative Government. Let’s get going Scotland, let’s get going from this British state that has ignored and sidelined Scotland at every step along the way of its Brexit obsession. Let’s get going Scotland, let’s get going from a British state that can’t succeed even at the most basic duty of a government, to keep its citizens safe during an epidemic. Let’s get going Scotland, let’s get going to a better country where the views of the Scottish people actually count for something.
The ironies of a let’s get going campaign for Brexit abound, because Brexit means the opposite of going. Brexit means that UK citizens will be stuck in the slow lane, stripped of the freedom of movement and settlement throughout Europe that we enjoyed until so very recently. It means that British citizens will now need travel insurance to cover their health needs when they go to the EU. A couple in their 70s will now have to spend around £165 in order to replicate what they previously enjoyed for free thanks to the European health card scheme. It means that British citizens no longer enjoy the legal right of entry to other European countries, we’ll now be subject to whatever checks or visa measures that the EU deems fit. It means that you will no longer be able to take your pet on holiday with you unless you go through additional vetinary checks as the pet passport scheme will no longer operate. And make sure that you can afford to pay your mobile phone bill because now you’ll be subjected to increased charges for data roaming. A British passport is now a second class passport that gives British citizens fewer rights and weaker rights than it did before. More expense. Longer queues. Fewer rights. And they want us to think that this means that we’re getting going. We’re getting gone over.
For the British economy what the Conservatives have planned is the opposite of getting going. It means border checks, paperwork, customs duties and import taxes. It means regulatory borders and queues of lorries. Let’s get going to sit in a long line of lorries along a motorway in Kent that’s been turned into a car park is not a snappy slogan, but it’s a lot more accurate than the one that the British Government has unveiled.
It’s a long time ago that the UK passed through the mirror into a world where words from the British Government mean the opposite of what’s actually happening. Part time Prime Minister told us that the UK’s response to the coronavirus epidemic was world beating, but the only way it’s world beating is by being having one of the highest death tolls and worst affected economies. Now we’re exhorted to let’s get going for Brexit when what the slogan really heralds is a warning of all the ways in which the UK, its economy, and its citizens will be hampered in getting going because of Brexit. It’s essentially a listing of all the downsides of Brexit with nary a mention of all those Brexit benefits that the likes of Michael Gove once promised us. But then Michael Gove is one of those people who think that it’s perfectly acceptable to lie through your teeth as long as you remember to say please and thank you.
Due to the swivel eyed ideological fixation of the Conservatives on a “pure Brexit”, the UK appears set to exit the transitional period at the end of this year without a deal. According to the UK Government’s own assessment from HMRC, the static total ongoing administrative burden on UK-EU trade due to a no deal Brexit is £15 bn a year. That works out at £290 million a week. Additionally the UK loses the economic benefits of membership of the single market and customs union, which are estimated at £1.6 billion a week. You probably missed the bus that these figures were painted on the side of. (Source here)
The UK is not getting going to a new start, it’s regressing to the 1970s with mass unemployment, economic and social crises, and no right to go and live and work in another European country. Some British nationalists tell us that if we don’t like Brexit and what the Conservatives are doing then we should go and live in some other country. Well that would be nice except the Conservatives have stripped us of the right to do so. Let’s get going backwards. Let’s get going but don’t forget your health insurance, visa application, and make sure that you’ve four months left on your passport otherwise you might be denied admission at the border of the country you hoped to visit.
The UK Government tells us that the UK will start a new relationship with the EU after the end of December. Well doesn’t that all sound terribly cosy. But what it really means is that the new relationship will entail the UK turning its back on Europe, crossing its arms and sitting in a huff until it can lower standards sufficiently in order to get some sort of a deal with the USA that will flood the UK with low quality food. Which the Tories will hail as a great victory. The new relationship will involve stripping the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish Parliaments of devolved powers without any consultation. Scotland decided that it wanted a devolved parliament with the powers that it possesses after a referendum, the same Tories who are always banging on about the importance of respecting the results of referendums propose to take powers away from the Scottish Parliament without asking the Scottish people. Of course they’re not going to ask the Scottish people, because they already know what answer they’d get. They’d be told to get going in two syllables which begin and end with F.
Let’s get going Scotland. Let’s get going to a more confident and better Scotland where we have a government which is answerable to the people of Scotland. Let’s get going Scotland. Let’s get going to a Scotland where we make the decisions that are in the best interests of Scotland. Let’s get going Scotland, to independence.
(Many thanks to whoever it was who designed the graphic which I have used for this piece. It has been circulating on social media.)
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