Brexit Afters

Many of the Remainer Brexit campaigners have still not moved on ....

 

BBC Still Has Brexit Tab .... Vote Was 2016

 

.... and even now, evidence of how anti-democratic their campaign and reaction to the result of the vote was, keeps turning up.

 

Now just as a reminder to myself, I should say that the EU Referendum vote was on the 23rf of June 2016, the leave vote, narrowly but decisively won, and we left on the 23rd of January 2020 ... its hard to remember that, with the way some people, organisations, and political parties are still reacting. 

 

For example, the 'Remainer' backing Fire Brigade Union (FBU) removed one of its executive committee members in 2019, in what has been described by a judge as 'witch hunt' with a 'pre-determined outcome', apparently because he had the audacity to have backed leaving the EU, with or without a deal as that was how the country had voted, rather than support the unions views on the matter. 

 

Mr Paul Embery is a left-leaning political activist and writer, and had been the elected London regional secretary of the union (a role he had held for 20 years), before he appeared and spoke at a Leave Means Leave anti-EU rally, alongside fellow speakers Nigel Farage, Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice, and then Labour MP Kate Hoey, in 2019. There was some disagreement between himself and the FBU President, Ian Murray over whether he was still bound post referendum, by the pre-referendum policy of the Union, not to campaign with political opponents during the referendum campaign.

 

The Offending Speech .....

 

Mr Embery believed that the union policy had lapsed once the referendum had been held, and that as the country had voted to leave, he was free to respect the democratic outcome and support leaving. In his speech he suggested that the movement (unions) risked being on the wrong side of history, if they didn't get 'on the side of the people,' if they wanted 'to stay relevant'. 

 

But he was then removed from his union post, following an internal investigation by the union for 'gross misconduct,' and after he was branded a 'disgrace to traditions of labour movement' by the general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, Matt Wrack. He was subsequently barred from standing for a role as a union official for two years. But he has now won an Employment Court case against the Union for unfair dismissal, and is expected to be awarded a substantial payout as compensation. 

 

It simply beggars belief that years after the Brexit referendum result, a left wing trade union still believes that it can be anti-Brexit, and still won't allow elected representative / employees to hold political views that are not its own on this matter  .... mind you the BBC still has a special active web section entitled Brexit (now moved under the politics section), so I guess its true to say that many still haven't accepted the EU referendum result, and somehow think it will be reversed, even though we have fully left the EU now.

 

I guess this is what passes for free speech and democracy in action, socialist style.

 

Update September 2022: The tribunal awarded him £8,300, after his bosses launched what the tribunal described as a 'witch hunt' to get rid of him.