The Electorate enters 10 Downing Street holding Brexit in a box. Enters Prime Minister Theresa May’s office. May is sat behind a desk.
Electorate: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(Theresa May does not respond.)
Electorate: ‘Ello, Jeremy?
May: What do you mean “Jeremy”?
Electorate: (pause) I’m sorry, I got mixed up. I wish to make a complaint!
May: We’re, um, on holiday for three months.
Electorate: Never mind that, my lady. I wish to complain about this Brexit what I voted for barely over a year ago in a referendum approved of in this very office.
May: Oh yes, the, uh, the Britain’s exit from the European Union for a future of unconstrained prosperity and global success…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?
Electorate: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lady. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
May: No, no, it’s uh,…it’s resting.
Electorate: Look, matey, I know a dead Brexit when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.
May: No no it’s not dead, it’s, it’s restin’! Remarkable process, the Red White and Blue Brexit, idn’it, ay? Beautiful jams!
Electorate: Jams don’t enter into it! It’s stone dead.
May: Nononono, no, no! It’s resting!
Electorate: All right then, if it’s restin’, I’ll wake it up! (shouting at Brexit) ‘Ello, Mister Brexit! We’ve got some lovely fresh negotiations for you if you show…
(UK withdraws from the 1964 London Fisheries convention)
May: There, it moved! We took back control!
Electorate: No, you didn’t, that was you withdrawing from an obscure self-imposed initiative which was obsolete anyway!
May: I never!!
Electorate: Yes, you did!
May: I never, never did anything…
Electorate: (yelling and hitting Brexit repeatedly) ‘ELLO BREXIT!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your Article 50 alarm call! We’ve got barely a year left to sort out four decades worth of infrastructure and integration! Testing!
(Takes Brexit, thumps it against May’s desk. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Electorate: Now that’s what I call a dead Brexit.
May: No, no…..no, it’s sabotaged!
Electorate: SABOTAGED?!?
May: Yeah! You sabotaged it, just as it was getting going! Brexits sabotage easily, major.
Electorate: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That Brexit is definitely deceased, and when I voted for it not 15 months ago, you assured me that its total lack of logic and common sense was due to experts and the liberal elite not being trustworthy and it would be fine because the Germans will want to sell us cars. And now look at it!
May: Well, it’s…it’s, ah…probably pining for the Empire.
Electorate: PININ’ for the EMPIRE?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on it’s face the moment negotiations started?
May: Brexit prefers falling on its face! Remarkable process, id’nit, squire? Lovely jams!
Electorate: Look, I took the liberty of examining this Brexit when it all kicked off, and I discovered the only reason that it had seemed feasible in the first place was because of ridiculous lies on a bus and you not telling us anything about it, justified with some guff about keeping your cards “close to your chest”!
(pause)
May: Well, o’course I had to keep my cards close to my chest! For everyone else’s benefit. If I hadn’t, everyone would know how amazing Britain is, Brexit would have spread through the EU, broke it all up with its strength and stability, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
Electorate: “VOOM”?!? Mate, this Brexit wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through it! ‘It’s bleedin’ demised!
May: No no! It’s pining!
Electorate: ‘It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! The sunlit uplands are no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet it’s maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t kept us in the dark it’d have been binned a long time ago! This exiting processes is now a shambles! It’s a coalition of chaos! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its half-baked rationale, squandered our credibility and joined the bleedin’ Suez canal crisis!! THIS IS AN EX-BREXIT!!
(pause)
May: Well, I’d better replace it, then. (May takes a quick peek behind desk) Sorry squire, I’ve had a look ’round and uh, we’re right out of equivalent international treaties that allow us to maintain our present standard of living while granting us greater-if-unnecessary sovereignty and control of our borders right now.
Electorate: I see. I see, I get the picture.
May: (pause) We’ve got the World Trade Organisation.
(pause)
Electorate: Pray, does it allow us to trade and work seamlessly with our nearest neighbours, something on which most of our economy and industry depends?
May: Nnnnot really.
Electorate: WELL IT’S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?
May: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)
Electorate: Well.
(pause)
May: (quietly) D’you…. d’you fancy another election?
Electorate: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure.
Inspired in part by the inestimable David Allen Green and his insightful explaining of Brexit via pop-culture references