This is a bad #Brexit deal done by bad people in a bad way. It doesn’t have the public’s explicit informed consent. It bears little relation to Vote Leave’s promises in 2016. I couldn’t vote for it
Of course we must now move forward as a country and, like many, I am fed up with the Brexit process. But that makes it all the more important to call out what has happened: Britons have been misled by bad people into making the greatest strategic error in our modern history
We must learn. The public was had and elected people whose mismanagement of #COVID19 led to the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands; who screwed our country for a generation; & cornered us with lies, manipulation, bullying & brinkmanship. Such people shouldn’t be in power
As for what next: it’s not realistic to expect Johnson & the Conservatives, now the party of the incompetent, the foolish, the corrupt, the elite & the morally weak, who got our country into this unnecessary mess, to lead us out of it. We need an alternative. Time to get stuck in
If you want to be led by decent, competent people, the best thing to do in 2021 is join an opposition party, shape policies that work for real people, stand for public office. Democracy *can* put power into the hands of the people. But only if we all ensure elites don’t abuse it

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More from @DrPhillipLee

6 Dec
This is pure revisionism, untrue and a dangerous, divisive reinvention of recent history that will stop our country from recovering. I was intimately involved in these events and will try to explain....
Let’s put aside for a moment the rights and wrongs of a ‘soft’ Brexit. (Wrong mainly because no one voted for it in the 2016 referendum; it literally wasn’t on the ballot paper.)
There was a fleeting opportunity for a soft Brexit in 2016 *if* the-then PM had chosen to make delivering Brexit a cross-party endeavour. This is what she should have done on an issue of such strategic national importance, and I told her so at the time.
Read 25 tweets
9 Nov
POST-BREXIT: Kupchan (Biden Foreign Policy Adviser) - “The bottom line is that Brexit is an act of self-isolation. Britain (is) no longer the bridge to Europe it (has) been. The UK is going to have to figure out how to make itself relevant at a time when it is inwardly focussed”.
POST-SUEZ: Acheson (US Sec of State) - Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role. The attempt to play a separate power role — that is, a role apart from Europe, a role based on a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, a role based on being head of a...
....’commonwealth’ which has no political structure, or unity, or strength — this role is about played out.” A senior adviser to the President-Elect of our closest ally indicates we’re no further forward in 2020 in determining an effective role in the world than we were in 1962.
Read 4 tweets
10 May
This Govt is appallingly, consistently inept. By not taking obvious decisions in Jan/Feb it has already unnecessarily killed tens of thousands & is destroying our economy...now we’ve got this idiotic #StayAlert message. It is hard to stress enough: IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS
No one with half a brain could read about #ExerciseCygnus (based on a relatively mild ‘flu for which a vaccine would have been available quickly) & *not* conclude that we were hideously unprepared for the more virulent and not-yet-treatable #COVID19 theguardian.com/world/2020/may…
In these circumstances, ANY half decently-motivated Government that was reasonably balanced would put measures in place early to contain the virus and protect people, particularly those most at risk, while working for a global solution (we won’t be safe unless everyone is).
Read 5 tweets
16 Apr
This isn’t accurate. In January, what were our ventilator and testing capacities? When did @MattHancock first read the Exercise Cygnus report from 2016? How can he claim we were one of the best prepared? Compared to who? We knew of #COVID19 threat in January. Why decision delays?
And here are a few other questions which should be asked at the #COVID19 briefing this afternoon - and repeatedly until we get honest and satisfactory answers.....
Why did the Govt at the time of Exercise Cygnus choose not to publish the final report, or at least share it with key partners? How could highlighting the ventilator shortage in the NHS acute sector not be in the national interest? It would have given us time to prepare
Read 10 tweets
30 Mar
We could have been ready for #COVID19. That’s what makes me so angry about this Government’s mishandling of this pandemic....1/
In late 2016, I took part in a government exercise to test how we’d deal with a pandemic when I was at @MoJGovUK. It was called Ex Cygnus. @cabinetofficeuk was in charge of running it and acting on the conclusions @NickFerrariLBC lbc.co.uk/radio/presente… ...2/
This was a well-developed 3-day exercise. Ministers had to decide what to do as the overwhelming scale of the pandemic became apparent. (NB in contrast to #COVID19, there was a treatment for, and vaccine against, this virus; yet the realities & outcomes were still sobering) 3/
Read 14 tweets
27 May 19
On #Brexit, these #EUelections2019 show that, if a political party stands in the middle of the road, it gets squashed. That‘s what I predicted when I resigned from Government last year. And it’s what has happened to @Conservatives and @UKLabour
So what next? If the purpose of government is to follow the will of the people (at any cost), the only politically viable Brexit is a hard one (WTO etc). But neither major political party will get a Westminster majority by delivering Hard Brexit without explicit public consent
And forget any soft Brexit. It’s not politically viable (for the record, I’ve always held that it’s the worst of both worlds) and anyone thinking we get further concessions from the @EU_Commission by playing hardball is living in cuckoo land. The WA is it, take it or leave it
Read 5 tweets

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