Why did Labour decide to start telling the Truth about brexit?

1️⃣ Timing of Brexit blame-game:
Labour denied Brexit’s damage for years. Now that denial is untenable 👉 the economy’s stalling (Reeves’s budget accelerated the crisis), the OBR’s data is public, and global investors know the truth, they’ve decided to admit it only to shift blame and manage expectations before the next Budget.

It’s not a confession; it’s a pre-emptive excuse.

Thread 1/4
theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 2️⃣ This isn’t a change of policy, only tone. Behr’s opening line says it all:

“A new Brexit stance, not to be mistaken for a change in policy.”

They’ll sound contrite - but they still refuse to rejoin the Single Market or Customs Union, or even align meaningfully with EU standards.

So the UK stays locked into the same corporate-led deregulation path, only now dressed up in the language of “truth” and “growth.”

🧵 @GeorgeMonbiot is right to warn of toxic chemical Brexit deregulation 👏

But there’s a deeper, quieter agenda unfolding — one that risks far more than our water and soil.

It’s time to look at what’s not being said. 🧪🇺🇸🇬🇧
@carolecadwalla
In a buried consultation, @UKLabour plans to let foreign countries approve toxic chemicals for UK use.

No UK 🇬🇧 testing. No expiry dates.
No public database.
No scrutiny.

George called this a “chemical bonfire.” And he’s right. It’s a total loss of control.

But what about food? 👇

🧵THREAD: The Brexit “reset” is a lie.
New EU–UK trade progress is being quietly sabotaged by the UK–US Prosperity Deal — and the EU knows it.
Here’s what they’re not telling you: 👇 The UK government claims it wants a reset with the EU:
✅ Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal
✅ Fewer checks
✅ Easier trade

But behind the scenes, it’s signing a deregulation pact with the US — using Henry VIII powers to bypass Parliament and rip up food standards.

gmfus.org/news/us-uk-eco…

🧵 THREAD: Why the UK–US Prosperity Deal is likely unlawful — and how it’s deregulating your food behind Parliament’s back. This isn’t just a dodgy trade deal.
The UK–US Prosperity Deal was signed without a vote in Parliament.

Ministers say it’s just a non-binding agreement.

So why is it quietly being used to rewrite UK law?

Here’s what’s really going on. 👇

🧵 THREAD: Why is food so expensive in Britain and who’s to blame?

A breakdown of food inflation, post-Brexit chaos, and political betrayal 👇

1️⃣ According to The Sunday Times, food prices in the UK have risen 36% since 2020.

That’s more than France 🇫🇷(23%), Germany (25%), and US 🇺🇸(34%).

So much for “cheaper food after Brexit.”
Source: The Times, July 2025 2️⃣ What’s getting hit hardest?

🫒 Olive oil: +115%
🍫 Chocolate: +49%
🥚 Eggs: +50%
🥛 Milk: +42%
🧂 Sugar: +65%

Your food shop is shrinking — and your wages aren’t catching up.

🧵✅ Recent regulatory changes open the door to hormone-treated beef and chlorinated chicken.

Even if ministers deny it publicly, here’s how it works:

⚖️ 1. Post-Brexit UK regulation is no longer tied to EU food safety standards (SPS rules)

•The Retained EU Law Act gave ministers sweeping powers to rewrite or scrap food regulations via Statutory Instruments (SIs) — without full parliamentary debate.

•These changes weaken bans on things like hormone beef, chlorinated chicken, or pesticide limits without public oversight. 🤝 2. Trade deals create pressure to lower standards

•The UK–US trade deal has long demanded access for US meat and dairy, which is often produced using hormone growth promoters and chlorine washes.

•The UK–India deal involves pressure to accept pesticide residues and additives banned under EU law.

•The CPTPP allows imports from countries that do not follow EU-style SPS rules — making it harder for the UK to maintain higher standards.

🧵 Starmer’s “Change”: Same Gruel, Shinier Bowl

Keir Starmer promised change.
He promised decency, justice, and a break from the chaos.
But what did we get?

The same old gruel — just served in a shinier bowl.

Thread 🧵 🎩 The Promise:

– “End of factionalism”
– “Stronger social safety net”
– “Green prosperity”
– “Closer EU ties”
– “Public ownership”
– “Integrity in politics”

People say the UK can’t be like Norway 🇳🇴 because of “population size.”

The truth is, Britain’s real problem isn’t size.

It’s obedience.
🧵 Norway 🇳🇴 used its oil wealth to build a $1.5 TRILLION sovereign wealth fund.

The UK used its oil wealth to fund tax cuts and deregulation.

One chose long-term planning.
The other chose short-term greed.

Nigel Farage says a migrant deal with @EmmanuelMacron is wrong because “this is Brexit Britain—we voted to take back control, not to accept a deal from a French president.”

But here’s the thing:

This is Brexit Britain. And it means a permanent migrant crisis we can’t fix. 🧵 Farage is right—this is what Brexit Britain looks like:
•We left the Dublin Regulation, so we can’t return asylum seekers to the first EU country they entered.
•We scrapped freedom of movement, but kept labour shortages that drive exploitation.
•We burned bridges, then begged for lifeboats.

🧵1. Britain is heading for a food crisis.

Grain shortages in Russia and Syria.

UK farms hit by drought & floods.
Morocco in historic drought — and we’re still importing their last tomatoes.

Meanwhile, British farmers are paid not to grow food 👇

reuters.com/markets/commod… 2. Russia — the world’s biggest wheat exporter — has slashed export taxes to zero.
Why? To stop bread prices rising at home.
Their harvest is down ~14% due to hail, frost, and drought.
A global grain shock is already underway. 🌾🌍

🧵 1. Rachel Reeves cried in PMQs. The markets wobbled. And BlackRock stepped in.

What just happened wasn’t compassion. It was a moment of rupture in a govt stitched together by executive overreach, narrative control — and global finance. A thread. 👇
bbc.com/news/articles/… 2. Reeves broke down during PMQs last week.

On the surface, it looked human - even relatable. But markets saw something else: instability. And they blinked.

newstatesman.com/politics/econo…

🧵 Steve Coogan has dropped a political truth bomb.

He says Starmer’s Labour has abandoned its principles and is paving the way for the “racist clowns” of Reform UK.

But there’s a deeper story here — about Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour, and a dangerous ideological drift. 👇 Coogan’s points to a hollowed-out Labour Party — one that talks like the Tories, governs from the centre-right, and ignores the social decay fuelling Farage.

“It’s all gesture politics… They’ve abandoned working-class people.”

That’s not accidental.

🧵 Last night on @Channel4News, Lord Maurice Glasman (who claims that McSweeney is one of theirs) said the quiet part out loud:

Brexit was just the beginning.

What comes next? A radical border regime, slashed welfare, and a purge of “progressive” politics — under Labour. 👇 Glasman called Brexit “a great move by the British people”. For him, it wasn’t about sovereignty — it was about rebuilding the nation on harder, harsher terms: national service, closed borders, and an end to liberal rights.

🧵Brexit wasn’t a rebellion against global elites. It was a blueprint by them.

Hedge funds and think tanks turned “Take Back Control” into a fire sale.

From the start, Brexit was bankrolled by billionaires — not for patriotism, but for profit.

Take Crispin Odey, a hedge fund boss who made £220 million betting on chaos the day after the referendum.

He didn’t lose from Brexit. He cashed in.

1/7 Then there’s Paul Marshall, investor in GB News and backer of the Legatum Institute — the think tank that pushed the myth of a deregulated “agrarian utopia”.

They sold farmers dreams. Now they sell outrage.

These people didn’t want stability. They wanted a bonfire of regulation:
💷 Scrap protections
🏦 Slash tax
🌱 Open the door to cheap, low-standard imports
All under the flag of “freedom.”

• “Progressives” remember that the only time the Lib Dems were in government in the last 80 years, they voted for massive cuts to public services and council funding, and a tax on poorer people’s bedrooms, among many other catastrophes, for which we’re all paying a price.

And don’t get me started on Vince Cable’s fire sale of Royal Mail. The question Martin Kettle should be asking is: “How is this disgraceful outfit still going?” Peter Loschi
Oldham, Greater Manchester

theguardian.com/politics/2024/… • “Maybe people don’t take the Lib Dems seriously because of the sense that the party is opportunistic, a fact that manifested itself in 2010. Under Nick Clegg, it couldn’t move fast enough to form a coalition government, which went on to inflict the cruel and callous economic austerity measures that reverberate to this day. The Lib Dems are, and always have been, anything to anyone, depending on which way the wind is blowing.”
Gordon Vassell
Hull

The Times finally gets real about #Brexit

In the first of a two-part series, business reporters look at how parts of the service economy are faring almost two and a half years after the end of the Brexit transition period in late 2020.

#BrexitHasFailed “Britain voted to leave the EU seven years ago, but has failed to define its new global trading relationships. To regain its place as one of the strongest growing G7 countries, Britain needs a bold, forward-looking policy agenda and industrial strategy integrated with an actively… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Tories are drawing up plans for a succession of by-elections in the event that Boris Johnson is forced to resign and prominent supporters stand down so they can accept peerages.

The Times has been told that party staffers will conduct a series of “by-election drills” next week… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Senior Tories are increasingly concerned that Johnson could resign in protest if the report, due next month, is critical of him. He could also face a by-election if the committee decides to suspend him from the Commons for 10+ days.

The by-election drills will look at the seats… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Rishi Sunak’s lack of industrial strategy attacked by former business secretaries.

@vincecable @GregClarkMP and Peter Mandelson accuse @RishiSunak of failing to prepare 🇬🇧 for the future with effective or even visible industrial strategy
🧵
ft.com/content/f568ea… Clark said PM was so unenthusiastic about the idea that it was “like a guilty secret”, and that he had never heard Sunak even refer to “industrial strategy”.

The role of the state in the market economy has become a huge issue after US president Joe Biden’s $369bn green subsidy… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

“#Brexit is the last straw after a succession of damaging, mainly Tory, policies: ironically, these were justified as being in the interests of business, investment and productivity.

But the Thatcher govts from 1979 onwards inflicted serious damage on the economy. I have… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… “With an economy suffering cumulative effects of poor growth or absolute decline in real incomes – and along comes #Brexit. And what does former remainer @Keir_Starmer do? He ignores the open goal of the government’s disaster and says “make Brexit work”.
theguardian.com/business/2023/…

Thanks to #Brexit 🇬🇧 is already 2/3 of the way to…The Great Depression.

For a nation which until a few short years ago was the envy of the world — but then decided to basically inflict the Great Depression on itself. It’s like watching someone who was in perfect health@until last week and now they have a case of cancer so advanced there are tumors all over the body, and they’re going into organ failure. Never seen anything like it. Beggars belief. Shouldn’t happen. Shouldn’t even be possible.

#RejoinEU is only satisfactory means of addressing manifest problems caused by #Brexit.

To #GetBrexitUndone is a substantial challenge, but failing to pursue it is not a means of avoiding problems which mount around us as Brexit continues harming 🇬🇧
🧵
fedtrust.co.uk/getting-brexit… Claims that rejoin is not a practical option are in a sense self-fulfilling.

A key obstacle to this objective is that those who might seek to achieve it are dissuaded by the perception that such a programme is doomed to fail.

Recognising that such predictions need not ….