On Canadian news last night, and this is true, the funny bit at the end was them laughing at Brexit. This is the rest of our lives now. People keep saying - they just need to get on with it and sort this mess out. This will never be sorted out. The next fifty years will be perpetual chaos, so much so that the news will just change it's name to 'the chaos', so we'll say to each things like 'did you see the chaos last night?' and 'switch on the chaos darling' and 'we apologise for the delay to the chaos, it will air at the conclusion of the snooker'.
No one will ever change their mind. Remainers will never be persuaded that Brexit will do anything but make our lives worse and if and when it does we'll all just walk around with the same "why oh why why oh why aren't you as smart as me and my homeopath?" look we were born with. Brexiters will forever blame the failure of Brexit (and it will fail. Everyone, deep down, knows that now) on meddling, non believing, podcast having remainers. Brexit will always be for them, like Communism for the Marxists, or long ball football for Sam Allardyce, a failure of implementation rather than ideology.
Cancelling Brexit via a second referendum will not reset the country. Everything won't just go back to the way it was. X Factor will still have gone shit, Bake Off will still be on Channel Four and everyone will still be really angry. Angrier in fact. Just because those who voted Brexit were mistaken it doesn't mean they will ever believe that to be the case and for as long as that is true it's chaos, endless chaos.
Unless - and sorry for not mentioning this sooner - I have a solution... Catastrophic no deal Brexit. And I mean catastrophic. I mean Kent is a car park, planes can't land here, my dad can't get his medicines Brexit. I mean all the shops are selling is tinned all day breakfast Brexit. I mean zumba class is cancelled because there's tanks on the streets Brexit.
I don't, by the way, mean that I think we should deliberately make no deal Brexit catastrophic. I mean that a no deal Brexit which is by its very nature unavoidably catastrophic might be the only thing that makes some folk sit down over a powdered egg and ponder 'Hmmm. Have I dropped a bit of bollock here?'
The new mantra from the Brexit bunch is no deal, no problem. "We've got not nothing to be afraid of!". It has become perfectly clear that for most Brexiters there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will persuade them otherwise. I speak as an authority on this because I've seen their memes. Let's put it to the test.
For my plan to work, and this is absolutely essential, Boris Johnson has to be prime minister. So every night when he leaves Ten Downing Street to go for a jog in that stupid fucking hat of his and he's asked why 10% of NHS staff have taken the electorate's advice and gone back to their own countries we can hear him give us the full "I think it was... in the words of Emperor Hirohito... ask not what your country can do... or words to that effect... felix culpa I say unto thee! Felix culpa!" ramble. The face of the leave campaign has to be the face of the ultimate disaster it caused. In Johnson we have an ego so large he'd actually relish fulfilling his role.
Then and only then might the country be able to unite behind something - that we fucked up.
To believe in my alternate future you need to make two giant leaps of faith. You need to believe that, after three months of watching us sit in a vat of boiling water, the EU will take pity and annul the divorce. Wishful thinking perhaps but they won't be consequence free and I like to think the phenomenal success of Adele's second album still leaves us with some good will on the international stage. And you need to believe that in an era in which no one has ever conceded defeat in an internet argument, in which every single citizen (and I include myself and my eighteen month old son in this) is a dogmatic cunt, that when faced with a horrific and palpable consequence people are capable of changing their minds.
A risky strategy I admit and I take the point that it's a bit fucking cheeky of me to wait until I'm living in Canada to make the case. But the alternative is clear - we are going to be talking about Brexit for the rest of our lives.
No one will ever change their mind. Remainers will never be persuaded that Brexit will do anything but make our lives worse and if and when it does we'll all just walk around with the same "why oh why why oh why aren't you as smart as me and my homeopath?" look we were born with. Brexiters will forever blame the failure of Brexit (and it will fail. Everyone, deep down, knows that now) on meddling, non believing, podcast having remainers. Brexit will always be for them, like Communism for the Marxists, or long ball football for Sam Allardyce, a failure of implementation rather than ideology.
Cancelling Brexit via a second referendum will not reset the country. Everything won't just go back to the way it was. X Factor will still have gone shit, Bake Off will still be on Channel Four and everyone will still be really angry. Angrier in fact. Just because those who voted Brexit were mistaken it doesn't mean they will ever believe that to be the case and for as long as that is true it's chaos, endless chaos.
Unless - and sorry for not mentioning this sooner - I have a solution... Catastrophic no deal Brexit. And I mean catastrophic. I mean Kent is a car park, planes can't land here, my dad can't get his medicines Brexit. I mean all the shops are selling is tinned all day breakfast Brexit. I mean zumba class is cancelled because there's tanks on the streets Brexit.
I don't, by the way, mean that I think we should deliberately make no deal Brexit catastrophic. I mean that a no deal Brexit which is by its very nature unavoidably catastrophic might be the only thing that makes some folk sit down over a powdered egg and ponder 'Hmmm. Have I dropped a bit of bollock here?'
The new mantra from the Brexit bunch is no deal, no problem. "We've got not nothing to be afraid of!". It has become perfectly clear that for most Brexiters there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will persuade them otherwise. I speak as an authority on this because I've seen their memes. Let's put it to the test.
For my plan to work, and this is absolutely essential, Boris Johnson has to be prime minister. So every night when he leaves Ten Downing Street to go for a jog in that stupid fucking hat of his and he's asked why 10% of NHS staff have taken the electorate's advice and gone back to their own countries we can hear him give us the full "I think it was... in the words of Emperor Hirohito... ask not what your country can do... or words to that effect... felix culpa I say unto thee! Felix culpa!" ramble. The face of the leave campaign has to be the face of the ultimate disaster it caused. In Johnson we have an ego so large he'd actually relish fulfilling his role.
Then and only then might the country be able to unite behind something - that we fucked up.
To believe in my alternate future you need to make two giant leaps of faith. You need to believe that, after three months of watching us sit in a vat of boiling water, the EU will take pity and annul the divorce. Wishful thinking perhaps but they won't be consequence free and I like to think the phenomenal success of Adele's second album still leaves us with some good will on the international stage. And you need to believe that in an era in which no one has ever conceded defeat in an internet argument, in which every single citizen (and I include myself and my eighteen month old son in this) is a dogmatic cunt, that when faced with a horrific and palpable consequence people are capable of changing their minds.
A risky strategy I admit and I take the point that it's a bit fucking cheeky of me to wait until I'm living in Canada to make the case. But the alternative is clear - we are going to be talking about Brexit for the rest of our lives.
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