The Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have yet to respond to my most recent email regarding the FOI request; about the deal Theresa May and her government struck with Nissan. Of course, I am not expecting a reply until mid-late January and until a response is received there are significant issues that need to be highlighted.
Nissan recently made a U-turn on closing a factory in Sunderland after their Chief Executive said he was ‘confident’ after assurances were made by Theresa May.
The issues
Their initial response could cause some concern as one claim is that BEIS don’t keep recorded information on certain aspects, including a meeting between May’s government and Nissan.
This ‘deal’ could also be given to other manufacturers to promote Britain as ‘open for business’ in the wake of Brexit, if other companies deem the impact of Brexit to be greater than expected. I anticipate another response of avoidance to this FOI request because there has been no clarification on what was said during those talks by the government.
This highlights the governments lack of will to be open about vital aspects that will affect the public and Brexit is one of those issues. Their lack of a plan is evident with the increasing amount of rhetoric and soundbites Theresa May is giving to the media, with one of the most peculiar of her saying that it will be a “red, white, and blue Brexit.”
Setting a precedence
What Theresa May does well is convince a vast amount of people that she is saying something substantial.
With the help of the Murdoch media, the public are told that anyone against Brexit is unpatriotic and the enemies of society. The so-called ‘liberal elite’ are behind all the issues we face and that liberalism allows terrorism to thrive.
Those are lies, liberalism is defined as ‘a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.’
Liberalism is believing an open-ended discussion about societies issues, this is vital for growth, and believing everyone has a right to their own opinion.
Liberalism can come from someone with innate conservative beliefs. It is the far-right that oppose liberalism because they believe in oppressing of opposition to gain power. They also tend to believe that they are superior to others and use others people for this gain.
The dangers of the refusal by the government over this FOI request and the run around I have been given thus far, would allow them to do it in the future about even more vital services such as the NHS. Allowing the government to do secret deals could undermine the very nature of our democracy, where the truth is withheld and those who try to expose it are deemed traitors.
