I see your wind-blasted scarecrow’s head, like Mister Tumble fell into a teleport pod with Rod Stewart and a pack of Anchor Gold. I see your folded arms and polo shirts, forever the publican, an internationally educated millionaire fuming about the meddling of ‘elites’ in the democratic process. You’re a proper British bulldog, all squat body and struggling breaths, chasing the imagined car of European oppression whilst profiteering from their migrant labour.
You’ve held up your own personal trade war as a triumphant microcosm of the sort of hard Brexit you advocate, as if the biggest issue we’re going to face is not being able to sell Jaegermeister any more. Wetherspoons has purged its drinks menus of the sort of European tosh we were all quite happily drinking, replaced instead with British and Commonwealth brands that ratchet up the air miles and the patriotism in equal measure. On top of that your profits have increased, a state of affairs that you claim shows there’s been no economic dip in the face of the hard Brexit that hasn’t actually happened yet. What could be the alternative? It’s just unrealistic to suggest the reality is that we’ve all been driven to drink in ever-more soulless and depressing shitholes. You know best, Tim Martin. In Wetherspoons land Brexit means Brexit, and ‘fried egg’ means ‘microwaved egg.’
Once again it’s on you to lead the charge, for the dastardly pro-Remain government of Theresa May seems absolutely determined to keep us in the European Union at all costs by sending us incompetently crashing out of the European Union. You’ve sent out the Wetherspoons News to thousands of us, a newspaper with all the journalistic integrity of Piers Morgan’s soiled toilet roll, parroting your pro-Brexit propaganda in the face of a furious backlash from your own underpaid and over-exploited workforce. Once again the disenfranchised working classes are being sold the lie by a millionaire that the economic repercussions of a no deal are worth taking a hit for. Never mind that the generation who will feel it the most are the one that for the most part didn’t vote for it and are still struggling to recover from the financial dent left by the last crisis.
Can we all just stop and take a breath for a minute? Just to consider the possibility – however slim it might feel to those still fully committed to a full-throttle, copper-bottomed, weapons-grade scorched-earth Brexit – that this ACME farce of an approach might not be what anyone wanted? Even if No Deal is what the country wants, and the proof is far from forthcoming that that’s the case, it’s an absolute fucking joke that we are still trusting a government that doesn’t have a fucking clue how to manage and ameliorate it. We have nothing prepared, nothing on the table, and a trade negotiator in Liam Fox who couldn’t sell publicity to the McCanns.
It’s such a fucking mess that it would be laughable if it wasn’t terrifying. The one hope May seems to have is her misguided belief that the ever-hardening resolve of the EU is brittler than anyone expects, and that they are in fact the frightened rabbits that will blink first. It’s a bold strategy, but she’s missing the rather salient piece of information that rabbits barely ever fucking blink. For the thousandth time she’s going to try and ram her square peg into a round hole as the clock ticks ominously away in the background. A second referendum or pragmatic delay of any kind feels increasingly like a hopelessly optimistic mirage, such is her utterly dogmatic conviction that she can sort it all at the 11th hour and on the millionth attempt. No deal and an exit on WTO terms feels like a more realistic outcome than the entire bloc turning around and suddenly deciding May knows what the fuck she’s doing.
And for you, Tim Martin? You’ll fucking love it, cup of tea British bastard that you are. This country is brilliant, so let’s go ahead and change the shit out of it.
I see you, Tim Martin, whistling as you polish the glasses behind the bar. You’re a proper British barrel of a man, all thoughts of rolling pastures and Top Gear. It’s March 30th and the world hasn’t ended. Nelson’s Column is still standing, the green fields aren’t burning and Arsenal are still wank. Project Fear can do one, the lying experts in their field bastards that they are. There’s going to be a morning rush, same as any other, with hundreds of cheering faces turning up to drink English sparkling wine and wave their Union Jacks.
I see them, Tim Martin. A thousand shadows pressed against the frosted glass, the moans rising, the fingers squeaking against the windows. Soon the doors will open and they’ll stumble in, desperate to quench the thirst beaten into them by their new economic reality. They’re the ones who took the hit, Tim Martin, and they took it harder than some mindlessly jingoistic pillock sitting on a chain of soggy-carpeted pubs was ever going to.
They’re coming in. All you need now is a workforce, Tim Martin.
Good luck with that, you daft tit.
I see you, Tim Martin. I fucking see you.
