The storm approaches and sturdy men lash themselves to
masts and spars as they brave The European Seaway, formerly known as the
English Channel. Clouds gather, darkening and lowering as, laden with
foreboding, they advance on the good ship Great Britain. For millennia great tumults
have assaulted our weather-beaten hull but we manage to float on. But now we
doubt our ability to sail alone and seek to join a flotilla of uneasy alliances
and uncertain allegiances. Assurances our ship’s company will be cared for by
our partners are cold comfort but then our numbers no longer function as a crew
with a shared mission, so we all keep one eye on the exits.
Crewed by mercenaries, steered this way then that, yet
ever closer to that uneasy union and uncertain end, our clear sense of purpose
is gone. Being part of something bigger means being a smaller part of that
bigger thing and the bigger it gets the more we recede from view. The far-off and
foreign land which used to be called Europe now looms large in the captain’s glass
as he wonders what course to set. It doesn’t seem to matter very much; in his
madness, everywhere he turns he sees only the gaping maw of the relentless great whale pursuing
him.
The numbers swell as we pick up drifters and scavengers
and allow others to board without question. The ship becomes unstable and with
so few who now understand how to sail her she lurches from port to starboard, left
to right… until the lookout calls. Nobody listens at first; this Chicken Licken
has been warning of danger for years and so far we have ridden every wave, but
this time it is different. He points at the great whirlpool astern, into which
the ship is being dragged. The morbid fear of all our past masters is now upon
us. Instead of making European landfall when we could we dithered and now we
face the danger alone.
As the maelstrom drags us away from land and we teeter on
the outer rim of the vortex everybody panics. Those who are able seize the
lifeboats and strike out alone, leaving the old and sick, the weak and the
loyal to make the best of their fate. Certain doom is all they expect, all they
have been taught to deserve, and as the revolutions increase and the ship tilts
alarmingly to head down to the depths of the ocean they brace themselves for
oblivion as Europe disappears beneath their new and shrunken horizon.
Europe - going down the plughole
With an undramatic bump the ship suddenly arrests its
descent and with a small shudder it cants slightly to one side, then all
movement ceases. Opening their eyes those who remain on board nervously peer
over the gunwales and look down. The last of the water is gurgling down the
plughole and HMS Great Britain sits easily, securely and safely on drying land.
In the distance, those who took to the lifeboats are stranded and those who
actually reached Europe are cut off and forgotten. The fearful and mighty ocean
deep of unilateral UK Independence, warned about for years, turns out to have
been just a puddle.
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