I see you in your patio chair, all wrapped up in your Union Jack duvet, your breath escaping your lungs in gouts of mist in the chill of the morning air. I see your great British cup of tea steaming on your armrest, the glow of victory warming your cheeks as you await a glorious sunrise on a free country.
What a victory it’s been for you, Mark Francois – not Brexit in general, but the way in which it’s elevated your personal standing. Never before has the country owed so very little to so few, the mangled bastardisation of the will of the people now finally delivered by a witless cabal of boorish incompetents. Under any other circumstances you’d be so desperately unqualified to hold an opinion on anything that the media would have kept you under the rock that spawned you. Brexit has been a remarkable reagent for farting into life the careers and profiles of the thoroughly undeserving and you, Mark Francois? You’re the most undeserving of them all, a clawing bullhorn of a man scrabbling to the top of a pile of noisy toddlers whose naked ambition is matched only by their utter charmlessness.
Brexit Day has finally arrived, with the fevered celebrations of its most gleefully honking advocates wrapping themselves in bunting and finally doing away with that bothersome fallacy of great British tact and decency. I’m sure plenty of people marked the occasion with their own sort of quiet dignity, pleased to have started the uncoupling process from a bureaucratic institution they no longer trusted. I just couldn’t see any of them because I’d rolled my eyes into the back of my head after witnessing the pathetic scene of Anne Widdicombe waving her little flag at half-mast in the face of European MEPs attempting to respectfully bid us farewell.
The triumphalism was inevitable but the scale of it when so little tarmac has actually been laid on the supposedly glorious road to our future is laughable. The only thing we’ve actually done so far is fire all of our MEPs, which in the case of Farage and Widdicombe even I can get on board with. The actual work starts now, Mark Francois, and you’re expecting to once again be front and centre for all of it.
I see you, the grin breaking out across your face as the morning sun crests the horizon and bathes you in its warming glow. I see you stand up and stretch, welcoming the glorious new dawn. It’s been alright, the last few years, hasn’t it? You’ve bulldozed your way into the public consciousness, huffing and puffing, vanquishing Femi and Terry Christian and all the other Remoaner dorks. They lie scattered at your kingly feet and now it’s time to reap the rewards.
I see you pick up your cup of tea, Mark Francois, whistling as you head back into the house to face the real work still to be done. I see you pick up your mobile phone, shrugging at the total lack of missed calls and messages. It’s early, isn’t it? Hardly surprising no-one’s called yet.
I see you pace back and forth, the hours ticking by, concern slowly furrowing your brow. I see the kettle boiling as you hover it, your ears pricking before you rush back into the lounge, half-convinced you heard a ding. I see the dark screen on your phone, devoid of life, as blank and dismissive of you as Will Self’s stare.
I see the hours turn into days, the days turn in to weeks. I see you recede and shrivel away, your profile fading like an old polaroid in the sun.
You gave them all the noise and bluster you had to offer and now they cast you aside? Don’t they know who you are, Mark Francois? Don’t they remember?
It’s almost as if you’ve got fuck all to offer beyond chest-thumping bravado, and now Brexit has finally limped over the finishing line you’ve utterly exceeded your limited usefulness.
I hear the clock on the mantelpiece chime, Mark Francois, the only bong you’ll ever hear, a metallic little one that counts away the hours of your slide into irrelevance.
I see you, Mark Francois. I fucking see you.
