Brexit through the looking glass, darkly

Brexit means… well, what does it mean? In the world of smoke and mirrors, where nothing is real, it is scarcely glimpsed through the fog. Brexit is best viewed through a looking glass, darkly.

Gone are the rose-tinted spectacles. The castles in the air are ready to topple for good. It is safe to say that whatever Brexit stands for, the inverse is likely to be the truth.

Take the reliance upon unelected bureaucrats, for example. “Here we go again!” sighs Brussels insider Faye Sless-Minion. “Who, honestly, gets elected to do their job? Only politicians. The rest of us are experts. We submit job applications, get selected on merit, receive training. We are not dependent upon the whim of a fickle public likely to be contrary for shits and giggles.”

Experts. That word, which has become anathema instead of commanding respect. It could only happen in the looking glass world of bombastic narcissist Trumpty Dumpty. Trumpty is fond of the English language. Whenever I use a word, he explains, it means exactly what I want it to mean.

Meanwhile Tweedledum and Tweedledee are fighting like schoolboys over the Prime Minister’s job.

The white queen herself, her crown-bearing head looking ever more uneasy, still persists in believing six impossible things about Brexit before breakfast, dinner and tea.

Psychologist Dr Leah Vowt-Nowt tries to rationalize the mental state of the participants in this comedy of errors. “I like to hold up a looking glass to these people, so they can see how ridiculous they appear,” she said. “They say the mirror is lying, or that the image is too obscure. However, when forced to look, they enter into a strange place.”

Politicians transfer into a twilight zone of contradiction and paradox. This creates a psychiatric disorder, characterised by reversible amnesia for political identity.

“They start to utter nonsense that attempts to reconcile their opposing perceptions,” said Dr Vowt-Nowt. “I call this the ‘fudge state’.”

The characters blunder on, cheered by the gammon-faced crowd with their Anglo-Saxon attitudes, and abetted by the kindly white knight who keeps falling off his high horse.

The good news is that Brexit is still, somehow, proceeding. Even if it is in the wrong direction.

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