Insanity

I have observed a curious thing; in fact we all have. The great and the good, the righteous – some may say self-righteous – who voted to remain in the EU appear to have quite delicate equilibria. Their sense of perspective, already a tad warped by their inability to recognise the antagonistic nature of the project, is so unstable that it can be tipped over into near insanity with very little effort. Like Wile E. Coyote’s boulder balancing on a precipice it seems to take only the slightest bit of leverage to initiate the inevitable. Sometimes, so weak is their resolve that the push comes from within and they spontaneously embark on tirades against the ignorant bastards who stole their dreams.

Like those mad bag people screaming at the traffic the world watches, open-mouthed but careful not to catch their eye, as garments are rent, fists banged against unyielding invisible barriers and tiny feet are stamped in purple-cheeked rage. The Remainer tantrum is now so regular an event I am surprised that municipalities don’t install padded, soundproofed booths in high streets where they can vent their fury in safety. In an earlier age many Remainers would by now have been institutionalised for their own safety.

Weirdest of all, this infantile gasping for attention is given validity by the outbursts of a legion of high-profile figures: Alastair Campbell, Gary Lineker, Jolyon Maugham, AC Grayling, Anna Soubry, Andrew Adonis... the list goes on and on. And on. We not only tolerate their abusive ranting but media, especially social media, seems intent on giving them maximum exposure. And it’s easy to see why, because, like morons on reality television, their delusions make compulsive viewing; we are all Bedlam voyeurs now.

The best instances of the spontaneous inhuman combustion entertainment genre come when they reveal another conspiracy theory, or a trite aphorism as to why they lost the vote despite the many millions of overspend in their campaign, plus the support in kind from every branch of the enraged establishment, worth many millions more. Such outburst aimed at Leavers include, but are not limited to:

·         We didn’t know what we voted for.

·         The Russians made us do it

·         We believed a lie on a bus

·         Old people did it to spite the young

·         We wanted blue passports

Anything but the perfectly rational desire to leave, expressed simply and unadorned by any complex and unachievable mechanism by which we could both leave and remain simultaneously.

When they demand – actually demand – that we explain ourselves and we say; “We voted to leave the EU” they invent some genius counter-argument such as, “Ah, but what sort of Brexit did you vote for? You never specified what you really wanted, did you?” Or “You never had a plan!” and (but only after many, many months of trying to conjure up such a bogeyman) “But what about the Irish border?” Well, what about it? You don’t want one, the Irish don’t want one, how about... not having one?

Meanwhile we ignorant Brexiteers go about our business. We have no time to waste in trying to justify or explain the thing we have explained a million times over. We don’t want to be ruled by the EU; that’s it. But, they think, this must be a trap! And then from this they posit that every single one of the 17.4 million who voted to leave must have each had a different Brexit in mind. Only in the minds of Remainers can a simple expression of a single desire become a Gordian knot of a problem, impossible to solve.  

This is the source of the Nile of their delirium. In their heads they are the only rational people in the country; that one thought alone is entirely irrational, but they don’t stop there. Like religious ‘scholars’ they seek to come up with ever more outlandish stories to explain the inexplicable while ignoring the simple but elegant solution right in front of them. Like intelligent design versus evolution, one requires an article of faith while the truth merely needs to be acknowledged. There is no god and Brexit means Brexit; it means we leave. If you haven’t got it by now all we can hope for is your speedy recovery once you finally realise that rescue spaceship is never coming.