“What on earth is this man doing back in Government?”

Before Covid, UK employment was rising fast – despite Cameron’s threats

Even now, despite Covid, employment’s up 1.2m since the EU Referendum in 2016

CIBUK thanks its Affiliated Organisation Brexit Facts4EU.Org for permission to republish this article.

As things stand, the Conservative Party led by Rishi Sunak is heading for a pasting at the next general election, if opinion polls are to be believed.

In May 2016 David Cameron and George Osborne told the public they would lose up to 820,000 jobs if they voted to leave the European Union. What do you get for misleading the British public so egregiously? The answer is a peerage and the highest office in the land after that of Prime Minister.

There are sometimes things which need to be called out very clearly, on behalf of the majority of people in the United Kingdom. One of these is the way in which the British public was misled so badly by the Cameron administration in charge immediately prior to the EU Referendum in June 2016.

On behalf of the thousands of ordinary, decent citizens of the United Kingdom who went out in all weathers to campaign for a free, sovereign, democratic and independent Britain, we ask:

“What on earth is this man doing back in Government?”

Summary

Cameron’s wholly erroneous threat versus the reality

‘500-820,000 immediate job losses if you vote to Leave’

Here is what actually happened to employment

June 2016 : 31.75m employed – the month of the EU Referendum
June 2023 : 32.93m employed – an increase of 1.2 million since the EU Referendum

[Sources : HM Treasury May 2016 and Office for National Statistics 08 Dec 2023.]

And of course the BBC lapped up Lord Cameron’s messages at the time

The threat issued to the voting public in May 2016 by the then Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in no way ambiguous.

We were all told in no uncertain terms that even a vote to Leave itself – to say nothing of the other, longer term consequences of Brexit – would immediately result in 500,000-820,000 job losses.

Credit : BBC 2016 / Facts4EU.Org – click to enlarge

The simple fact is that employment continued rising after the vote to Leave. Even Nissan did not leave Sunderland and has increased employment there. In the country as a whole it is now 1.2 million above where it was in June 2016 and would of course have been even higher had it not been for the disastrous effect of the Government’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

The concerted effort of the Establishment which Cameron lined up

Any EU country considering a referendum on EU membership must be aware of what they will face. Here is what we were confronted with in the United Kingdom.

“All the experts say…”

How many times did we hear these words coming from the BBC, Sky News, and ITN? It wasn’t even just the supposed economic experts they were quoting, it was the entire Establishment. Just about every ‘respected organisation’ was wheeled out to pronounce solemnly on the matter.

Every stratum of society was roped in, up to and including the Archbishop of Canterbury. And just to make sure, the Remain Establishment flew in foreigners too, such as the President of the United States who threatened the UK against voting Leave whilst standing alongside a beaming David Cameron, then the British Prime Minister.

Lord Cameron’s “EU Army”

This is only an indicative list and we’re sure that readers could add to it in every way. But it will suffice as a reminder of the sheer scale of Establishment opposition to a Leave vote.

UK Governments & Political Parties

The UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Scottish National Party, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance Party

Ministers

The Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Defence Secretary, and 19 other Cabinet Ministers (80% of Cabinet in total)

Other politicians and entities

74% of all MPs, the vast majority of the House of Lords, the TUC, Mayor of London, the Bank of England and the Treasury (unofficially), almost all senior civil servants and ambassadors (unofficially), the major City Councils including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield

Banks

HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, George Soros, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Chairman of Barclays, CEO of Lloyds

Business

The CBI, City of London Corporation, the bosses of Ryanair, Easyjet, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Vodafone, BT, Virgin, and 36 of the FTSE 100 companies, 90% of economists, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Lord Sugar, seven of the BBC’s ‘Dragons’, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Dunstone, Bill Gates, and more than 1,000 other business leaders

International financial ‘authorities’

The IMF, OECD, World Bank, G7, G20, European Central Bank, World Trade Organisation (Just think about that list for a second)

Security

13 senior former Chiefs of Defence Staff and generals, the former heads of GCHQ and JIC, the former heads of police services, the Secretary-General of NATO, Head of Europol

Society

The National Farmers Union and almost all other trades unions, Universities UK, National Union of Students, NHS Chief Executive, over 1,000 barristers, the Head of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, Church of Wales, Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and many other organisations in society

Media

BBC, Sky News, and ITN, (all denied any bias), the Times and Financial Times (officially), and the majority of journalists (our opinion)

Science

The late Sir Stephen Hawking plus 150 other Fellows of the Royal Society, 13 British Nobel laureates, the Astronomer Royal, ‘TV academics’ such as Prof Brian Cox

Sport

All 20 Premier League football clubs, David Beckham, Arsene Wenger, Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdinand, Paula Radcliffe, Brian Moore, Lawrence Dallaglio, Bobby George, Ben Ainslie, and many more sports personalities

‘Celebrities’

Elton John, Daniel Craig, Jude Law, Bill Nighy, Simon Cowell, J K Rowling, Jeremy Clarkson, Keira Knightly, Bob Geldof, John Le Carre, Helena Bonham-Carter, Danny Boyle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Damon, Paloma Faith, Jamie Oliver, and hundreds more ‘celebs’ of all kinds, 96% of the Creative Industries Federation

Charities

RSPB, World Wildlife Fund UK, Heads and former Heads of other major charities including Save The Children

International Politics

The EU Commission, European Parliament, the 27 EU countries, President Obama, Hilary and Bill Clinton, 8 former US Treasury Secretaries, Kofi Annan (United Nations), the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and India, the President of China, the Japanese Government and most other foreign governments worldwide

The Fear Factor

Much is made – quite rightly – of Project Fear with its threats of massive jobs losses, etc. However there was another fear factor at work. This was quite simply the fear of admitting you were going to vote Leave.

This factor is rarely brought to the attention of the media or indeed of Remainers, by the very nature of the problem itself. Those who felt intimidated from standing up and stating they were in favour of Leave still feel the same way today. This is precisely why Remainers mostly remain in blissful ignorance of the anxiety their side has caused to millions of people.

We can cite examples, but of course they are unattributable. There is, for example, the Company owner who stood up in front of a massed meeting of his employees, telling them that if they voted Leave then they shouldn’t bother reporting for work on the following Monday morning.

He then clarified after the vote, saying that he meant that the Company’s orders would dry up and that there would be job losses. Needless to say there weren’t, and the Company continued to prosper.

We have received countless private messages in the last seven years from Leavers who dare not speak their name. Some of these messages have been hard to read.

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We hope this helps readers to understand what he’s saying, when Lord Cameron next talks about the EU.

LET’S ALL SPEAK CAMERONISH!

Cameronish-English Dictionary – Official Facts4EU.Org 2023 Edition

During the pre-Referendum period back in early 2016, Mr Cameron seemed to be inventing a new language on a daily basis. This language uses the same words as English, but readers should not get confused. It was new because the words have different meanings to those of widely-used and accepted English. Don’t worry. With ‘Lord’ Cameron as our new Foreign Secretary readers will soon get the hang of it again.

“Sovereignty” – The process of giving foreigners the right to make our laws.
“Safer” – A warm feeling, coined after Frau Merkel’s sudden decision to invite millions of people from the Middle East and Africa into the EU.
“Stronger” – What you feel when foreign governments take over the burden of all decision-making from you.
“Weaker” – The feeling when denied English breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner until you give up and sign a non legally-binding agreement not to reform the EU in any meaningful way.
“Better off” – The result of paying billions each year to subsidise the lifestyles of the people of other countries, and paying over 10,000 unelected EU officials more than the UK Prime Minister earns.

“More secure” – The satisfaction of knowing that a portly Belgian policeman is monitoring groups of Islamist terrorists in a Brussels suburb. Also used in military terms to denote that an EU army of French and Italian soldiers are ready to stop Putin from more expansion into Europe.
“Doing a Merkel” – Colloquial term for opening your country’s borders as wide as possible for mass immigration.

“Legally-binding” – An non-legally binding document attractively-bound by a secretary in the EU Commission office.
“Irreversible” – A sophisticated form of joke: a cross between irredeemable and risible.
“International law decision” – Form of obfuscation with no basis in reality.
“Treaty” – [Also written as Treat-ee.] An incentive offered to a child, as in “If you’re a good boy you might get a little Treat-ee”.
“Manifesto commitment” – Vague and passing aspiration, whose words are not to be taken literally.
“Ever Closer Union” – Direction of travel of the EU27 countries, denoting those with lack of global influence compared to the UK.
“Top table” – Table positioned at the back of the room, next to the toilets, obviously denoting country with most influence in the EU – where the UK was frequently positioned.
“Best of both worlds” – Expression normally preceded by “You can’t have the…”, but truncated for political reasons.
“Single Market” – EU’s tariff-free trade area set up for salespersons working for German white goods and arms manufacturers and French cheese and wine producers.
“Fundamental reform of the UK’s relationship with the EU” – Trade name for a form of porridge, much watered-down. More commonly known by the North-East Somerset term ‘thin gruel’.
“Acquis” – Collective noun for the totality of EU laws and directives, named after prominent French founder of the EU, the Acquis de Sade.
“Leap in the dark” – Allegedly dangerous Leave manoeuvre. Named after Eton initiation rite which followed lights out in the dorm.
“A reformed EU” – Children’s fable. No longer in common usage.
“Child Benefit” – British international aid, predominantly given to Poland.
“Patriotic” – Having or expressing devotion to, and vigorous support for, the EU.
“Europe” – Region where British people take holidays, enjoy good relations, and from which expensive German cars and Mediterranean wines are bought.
“European Union” – Where failed British politicians take extended holiday jobs, accumulate very good pensions, and are driven around in expensive German limos whilst consuming fine Mediterranean wines.

“Go to the back of the queue” – A promise to respect British queueing etiquette, first coined by a US President standing next to a grinning Mr Cameron on British soil.
“An IDS” – A politician earmarked for Inevitable Definite Sacking.
“European Arrest Warrant” – Legal procedure enabling accused British citizens to be sent to the wholly corruption-free countries in Eastern and Southern Europe.
“Border control” – A group of people employed for the purpose of welcoming people of unknown origin into the UK.
“To Gove” – Transitive verb, concatenation of ‘to go’ and ‘to leave’, previously known as ‘to stab in the back’.
“World leaders” – Other countries’ prime ministers and presidents, temporarily seconded to the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ campaign.

“Business Leaders” – Directors earning over £500,000 p.a. whose companies employ at least 500 EU workers on minimum wage.
“CBI” – Acronym for ‘Confederation for Booming Immigration’. Corporate lobby group for Eastern European workers.
“Francois Hollande” – Honorary British patriot. (Awarded after press conference in Calais with Mr Cameron, threatening ‘consequences’ for the British people if they voted Leave.)
“Stronger, Safer, Better Off” – Phrase using English words originally meaning stronger, safer, and better off.

Advanced Section – Some Camacronyms

“CAP” – Expensive delicacy much consumed in France and in less industrialised EU countries.
“CFP” – Formerly known as the Common Fisheries Policy. One of many fisheries terms now rarely used in Cameronish. Still widely used in Spanish and French ports.
“ECJ” – Collection of non-jurists in Luxembourg specialising in rewriting of UK law.
“ECHR” – Special court for Arabic speakers. Popular with British legal profession.

Observations

Not one word of contrition

Never in the last seven-and-a-half years has one single word of apology or even acknowledgement ever passed David (Lord) Cameron’s lips. The same is true of his co-conspirator, George Osborne.

It is hard to think of any other area of life where this behaviour would be remotely tolerable. Adding insult to injury, the man has now been elevated to the peerage and given the second-most important job in the land – that of Foreign Secretary.

Had Lord Cameron ever made an abject and fulsome apology for misleading the British public so badly, it is just possible that some might have been able to forgive. The public have learnt to be forgiving, as they have had little choice.

Unfortunately not a single word of regret has ever passed the new Foreign Secretary’s lips in the past seven-and-a-half years since he abruptly resigned as PM, having vowed to continue in the event of a Leave vote.

Cameron resigning

His sudden departure ended up with the country having Theresa May as Prime Minister, possibly the worst occupant of No.10 Downing St in two centuries.

The original report can be found here.

CIBUK thanks its Affiliated Organisation Brexit Facts4EU.Org for permission to republish this article.