Comment

Peer Andrew Adonis is one of the arrogantly-titled “people’s vote” (PV) campaign’s main figureheads – and he entered the Christmas period by announcing:

I am not signing off twitter for Christmas. There is Brexit to be stopped — Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) December 23, 2018

4.5 million children are living in poverty, 130,000 of them are homeless, rough sleeping has doubled and huge numbers of vulnerable people are in debt and despair under the government’s disastrous Universal Credit system, so there might be other reasons and other things to stop, but apparently Brexit was the prevailing reason.

Adonis’ Christmas Twitter activity to ‘stop Brexit’ turned out to do more to encapsulate the mentality of the PV tribe, with one tweet in particular provoking bewildered outrage:

The hundreds of comments were overwhelmingly critical:

But Adonis was not limited to one tweet to let everyone know he was on holiday in Austria. As well as describing the alpine weather, he shared a number of photographs of the picturesque surroundings he was enjoying – because, apparently, they typify the benefits of EU membership:

Adonis also made sure nobody would forget what’s important this Christmas by posting a selfie of himself in a ‘Stop Brexit’ hoodie and retweeted a video of himself in the Lords criticising parliamentarians – for going on holiday when Brexit is approaching:

But a tweet about the ‘uneducated white working class’ being bigoted and ‘full of intolerance and prejudice’ was revealing. Adonis said it was ironic and told the SKWAWKBOX it was “a commentary on the person making the stupid comment” – and it certainly seemed to be on point, as one of his fellow stop-Brexit-ers was on it within three minutes of its posting:

There was no discernible irony, however, in Adonis’ comment a few days earlier about civil servants:

The comment was compared by its critics to the attitudes of the worst of the hard Brexiters – but again, it was the agreement of members of the stop-Brexit camp that were the most revealing.

The SKWAWKBOX contacted Mr Adonis for comment. He responded:

My speech in the Lords – as I clearly stated in the tweet – was about Parliament not returning until the 7th Jan and taking a 19 day holiday – not against having a Christmas break at all! My proposal, which the government rejected, was to return on 2nd January so parliament could debate Mrs May’s deal & a people’s vote at the beginning of January rather than mid January, accelerating her timetable by two weeks. I never suggested Parliament sit over Christmas itself. I constantly campaign on social justice and inequality – and indeed have written a book with Will Hutton on the theme this year, ‘Saving Britain.’ But most people also take family holidays and get a break over Christmas, and I am no exception. The cartoon is clearly ironic and a commentary on the person making the stupid comment. It is in an excellent new collection of Brexit cartoons, published by Penguin, which I recommend to all anti-Brexit campaigners as a Christmas present. I tweeted a dozen others too and it would be good if you could reproduce some of others too – your readers will like them. Andrew Adonis

Of course, many people don’t take Austrian skiing holidays – and politicians who do would hopefully have the sensitivity not to tweet them on a day any family who wants to should be enjoying a warm, safe Christmas together and many were facing anything but.

If anyone wishes to read the other cartoons Adonis tweeted, they are in his Twitter feed.

Credit to him for responding to the enquiry – but in spite of his clarifications, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that life and issues on ‘Planet PV’ bear little resemblance to those of the millions of people suffering under the Tories and whose most urgent concern is removing them as far from government as humanly possible.

Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, kicked off Christmas by making an unannounced visit to a north London centre for homeless people to find out more about the issues they face and how best to help them.

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