Roland Crooke Stand with Ukraine

🍷🇪🇺 I spent a lot of time during my late teens working in bars, and I remember lots of people ordering wine. I remember them ordering small glasses, large glasses, whole bottles, sometimes several bottles at a time. I even remember the odd person enquiring about buying a magnum or a jeroboam (though mostly just in jest). I also remember people complaining about things. I remember them complaining that they could no longer order a pint of beer, hand over a pound (in paper note form) and get some change. I remember them complaining that they could no longer chat with the person next to them without being drowned out by a jukebox or interrupted by the beeps, bleeps and bangs of a video game. What I definitely DON’T REMEMBER is anyone - not a single person in all the years I spent behind those bars - ever mentioning, never mind requesting, a pint bottle of wine. And that should tell you everything you need to know about this one-pint bottle of wine announcement: There is no demand for one-pint bottles of wine. No one wants to buy them. No one cares whether they exist or not. It’s a total non-issue. The fact that this nonsense is heralded so triumphantly by Brexit loyalists says a lot about where our country is today. These Brexit die-hards know that, in stark contrast to the promises made by the snake-oil salesmen during the referendum, Brexit isn’t delivering solutions to the actual problems people have in their lives. It isn’t making food, electricity or gas more affordable. It isn’t making it easier to access hospital treatment or to get decent social care for elderly relatives. It isn’t increasing people's take-home pay or providing better jobs for young people. Frankly, if anything, it’s making those things worse. And because of that, they are obliged to come up with fantasy problems to which they can claim their fantasy Brexit is the solution. Our passports are the wrong colour. The emergency exit signs in the Dartford Tunnel havw odd numbers on them. Everyone’s distraught because they can’t buy wine in pint bottles. It’s all so trivial and so very tedious…and particularly maddening when millions of decent people across the country are struggling with extreme hardship on a daily basis. But perhaps we can do something about it. There is almost certainly going to be a general election in 2024. That election provides an opportunity to push back against ‘nonsense government’, to insist that our elected politicians stop taking us for fools and start putting our REAL priorities front and centre. The first step in that process is to get them to face facts. Most of the politicians who will be seeking our votes next year have already made clear they will not engage in any form of Brexit debate. They don’t want to go over old ground. They don’t want to replay the debate about whether Brexit was right or wrong. And that is absolutely fine. Brexit is done. The country made its decision. We left the EU. There is no way to change that decision now, and there is no immediate route back to EU membership. But what is NOT FINE is them using that as an excuse to avoid dealing with the very real damage being done by ‘Long Brexit’. In the same way that we have come to realise a bout of COVID-19 can have significant negative effects on our health months and even years after infection, it’s increasingly clear that Brexit is having a significant negative effect on our national well-being all these years later. As with Long Covid, the symptoms of Long Brexit are often difficult to recognise and to disentangle from other underlying issues. But disentangle them we must because, in the same way that Long Covid can persistently reduce the quality of someone’s life, Long Brexit is persistently weakening our economy, fraying the fabric of our society and undermining the institutions on which our democracy depends. If we do nothing else in 2024, Let's at least ensure that we use our democratic power to elect politicians with the courage to find a cure for Long Brexit so we can start getting our country back on track. [If you read all the way to the end and you agree with the above, please follow me and retweet this post to spread the word. Thank you!🙏]