Dear Theresa…
Well, it’s all over bar the shouting! Except it’s not over and there seems to be even more shouting than usual. The Brexit circus bumbles along, aided and abetted by the media which hyperventilates over every twist and turn; including wheeling out obscure academics to paw over esoteric constitutional conundrums in a pathetic attempt to inject some Guardian-like discourse into the idiocy and thus further bamboozle the public. Do we even have a constitution?
I see that Boris chappy has re-entered the fray with a preposterous proposal that he will vote for your deal provided you resign; that is, your dead-as-a-Dodo-deal, which he has previously said is: ‘worse than no-deal, worse than staying in the EU and threatens the integrity of the UK.’ I think Boris needs to refresh his understanding of the meaning of integrity. When I heard about his offer I thought: there is no way in which Theresa is going to capitulate to such an insulting proposition. But then I heard that you have accepted it. You have even been wooing those your party has been denouncing as an ‘anti-Semite, terrorist apologist and all round Putin puppet’, Corbyn. Ah well, I suppose it’s no time for false pride or principles when political careers are at stake.
I’ve been rather flippant about Brexit up to now, but I’d like to acknowledge a substantial benefit of the Brexit process. The decision of the UK to leave the EU represents a momentous turning point in the fortunes of our country; where Great Britain can once more stand as a proud sovereign nation, ready to take its place in the world. ‘Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!’ Sorry, I got a bit carried away there for a moment. No, it is not this jingoistic twaddle that I have in mind as the Brexit dividend.
I don’t know whether you have read that little book by William Morris, ‘News from Nowhere’. It’s a romantic portrayal of a socialist world. In this idyllic future society the parliament buildings have been turned into a giant dung heap – the cynic would claim they have always had this characteristic. William Morris wrote his fable over a hundred years ago but, had he been around in these more cosmopolitan times, he would have portrayed the steaming bloated edifice of the European Union HQ in Brussels in similar terms. If there were any starry-eyed individuals who imagined that, by voting for Brexit, they would rid themselves of the shackles of a feckless European plutocratic elite, in order to take back control at Westminster, it must be crystal clear to them now that they were merely voting to swap one dung heap for another. The working class needs to focus on ridding itself of the shackles of capitalism rather than taking sides in this bun-fight between different imperialist factions.
In the enormous dung-producing enterprise of Brexit you, Theresa, have been wielding the biggest shovel. In so doing you have helped to realise William Morris’s ambitious vision of a world beyond capitalism.