I see the disdain in your face, your eyebrow forever on the verge of rising, the weary sigh now your default exhalation. You’ve rolled your eyes on camera more often than The Undertaker, your mood perpetually flicking back and forth between boredom and complete frustration. You’re peak French, Michel Barnier, haughty and implacable, a ripe Camembert that’s been baked into a sneer. You won’t be moved, a roadblock on the bridge to the greener pastures of Brexit, the spokesman for an evil cabal who won’t give Britain’s ball back even though we definitely voted that you’re a big fat shithead and our dad’s economy is bigger than your dad’s.
As tedious as you’re clearly finding it all, at least the players have changed a little. David Davis has swanned off and been promptly replaced by Raab C Brexit, a low-end waxwork of Agent Smith with all the charisma of a garage forecourt murderer. His new tactics seem to consist exclusively of throwing out the death stare of a coked-up estate agent who senses a commission slipping away. “There will be adequate food” wouldn’t be a reassuring statement if it was used to advertise a cattery, let alone in an attempt to soothe the nation’s concerns.
In the latest of her never-ending most vulnerable moments, May’s pushed forward the most aggressive and disreputable arsehole she can find with one hand in an attempt to appear strong and then signed off on a promotion for Jeremy Hunt with the other. Lord knows what’s on the blackmail video that talentless fuck-toucan must possess – presumably it starts with a brisk jog through a field of wheat and ends in a stone circle with a child sacrifice. There seems to be no limit on just how far Hunt can fail upwards; presumably Theresa May’s arsehole is the exact shape and depth of the establishment trough, because his nose seems to to fit perfectly into both of them.
And it’s just not getting any easier, is it, Michel Barnier? You’ve scoffed and tutted at the overcomplicated mess of May’s latest trade proposals because you’re a big mean French bureaucrat, not because they’re the unworkable bag of shite that forms the best we’ve come to expect from her. The EU’s negotiating position has pretty much always been “customs union or bust”, Brexit in name only, pay us your money and hamstring the possibility of new trade deals. It’s almost as if making life outside the EU a huge success for Britain was never in their interests. Negotiations have been about as dynamic and innovative as a baked potato slathered in beige paint and we’re now at an impasse, a game of no-deal chicken. It’s hardly surprising that the EU expects a malignant incompetent like May to be the first to blink, even if both sides have something to lose. It’s a tug of war with a trade deal at one end and the Irish border at the other, with Arlene Foster threatening to let go of the rope at any second.
It might feel like the EU will never capitulate, but there’s one play you haven’t considered yet, Michel Barnier.
I smell the pot of coffee and the rich, buttery scent of croissants baking in the oven. I see you, Michel Barnier, the morning sunlight filling your kitchen as you sit at the breakfast bar and sip your latte. I hear the doorbell ring, and I see your brow furrow. Are you expecting someone, Michel Barnier?
I hear you slide back the bolt and the click of the latch as you step out on to the porch, an audible tut escaping your lips as you notice the box on the bottom step. I see you bend down to open it, your fingers touching the red, white and blue ribbon tied around it. From the side of the house I see Dominic Raab rush forwards and stab the needle into your neck. I see you collapse into his arms and I see him begin to drag you up the path, gravel skittering away from your leadened ankles.
I smell the damp earth of the hidden basement, Michel Barnier. I hear you cough as you wake, your eyes struggling to adjust. I see the silhouette in the blazing daylight of the doorway at the end of the staircase, and I see it shove somebody down into the darkness with you.
I hear the door slam shut, Michel Barnier, and I smell stale tobacco and cheap ale. I see the shapes form as the thin light gifts you back your sight, Michel Barnier. I see the bulging eyes staring back at you, Fraud of Toad Hall atop a Harris Tweed suit the colour of baby shit.
Dominic Raab is good for something, Michel Barnier. It might be drugging and kidnapping people and smuggling them across the channel rather than negotiating a hugely complex trade deal, but he’s good for something, and here’s his final offer.
Sign off on something – anything – or you and Farage never get out of the basement.
I see you, Michel Barnier. I fucking see you.
