There’s an old Chinese folk tale of a farmer whose horse ran away. But moron that later. Meanwhile, the UK has just slipped over the Brexit precipice in a way that might have given Thelma and Louise a run for their money had there actually been any real momentum left. By the time we got to the edge, the impetus was so minimal and the passengers so confused and sedated by years of utter (self) deception and months of mismanaged lockdown, that the driverless vehicle fairly flopped into the abyss. No glorious trajectory, just the anti-climax of freefall with only the sound of rushing air and an imperial past unravelling above us. That it should come to this.

In keeping with our bytey times, the complexity of Britain’s lamentable departure from Europe was condensed into that pointless portmanteau, Brexit. It comes on like a 1970s radioactive breakfast cereal for kids, and was so appallingly ill-conceived that it baffled even its own dark architects, darkitects possibly, if we’re doing portmanteaus. 

When St Paul wrote about ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’ he wasn’t joking. To that we might also add criminal negligence and olympic incompetence. From the self-serving lunacy that gave rise to the UK referendum in the first place, a couple of points stand out: 

Not even UK politicians – whose job it is – can understand the complexities of Brexit, so what chance the poor old public, whose opinions are so easily manipulated? Never ask us such a horrible question because we literally don’t know our arses from our elbows. If you absolutely have to have a vote, then do it on a 60-40 basis to avoid the kind of nightmare division we now have. They couldn’t have messed it up more if they’d planned it. Oh…wait….surely not? 

While the sea has entirely shaped this little island, from geology to sociology, like all islands it has made the British insular and therefore prone to delusion. This will appear more magnified if you’ve had a good imperial run, like Britain did for a few centuries. As such, Brexit is far more than a political lie gone horribly wrong. And it’s not the first time we’ve pulled this kind of stunt: we’ve always been in and out of Europe, it seems.

It started in 409-443, after the Romans, having done very little for us, left; in 1533, Henry VIII broke with Rome; in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo; and in 1880 the British government again retreat into ‘splendid isolation’. And let us not forget who actually won the world wars: thank you very much. We did it all by ourselves. We may have your stuff in our museums but that’s only because we’re the civilising guardians of posterity, don’t you know. Anyway, someone had to. To be fair, this arrogance applies to anyone who’s ever been so consumed by power that they become it. For Britain, the end of empire is a large, bitter pill that, along with centuries of pride, takes some swallowing. No wonder there’s so much drinking here.

A wider concern is that with Britain removed, the EU might go on to collapse like a pile of Jenga blocks. And then what? Given the lack of integrity or competence of EU and other world leaders, plus bad economics, widespread fear and disillusion, it’s not too hard to imagine where it could all end up if, heaven help us, we keep on sleepwalking. The big wheel is gaining momentum now and one can stop it, as the futile 1914–1989 war showed. 

By running back towards a mirage of former greatness, Britain’s descent into the absolute ashes of that past is more or less guaranteed, ironically by those whose very identities seem to depend on it continuing. As to the socio-economics of such a retrogressive move, the words ‘catapult’ and ‘stone age’ come to mind. Is our perception of Europe still based on Jeux Sans Frontieres? What do people think ‘taking back control’ will actually mean aside from no more wonky cucumbers? Morris dancing, cheese rolling, mass unemployment and food banks? Now That’s What I Call Britain (vol 8,647). Perhaps this is how all empires end. 

But what of the farmer whose horse ran off? ‘What bad luck!’, said his friends. ‘Maybe’, he replied. A few days later the horse returned with an even stronger horse. ‘What good fortune!’, exclaimed the friends. ‘Maybe’, replied the man. The next day his son tried to ride the wild horse but fell off and broke his leg. ‘What a disaster!’ cried the friends. ‘Maybe’, said the man. A week later all the young men, except the son, were drafted to go and fight in a war. ‘How wonderfully it has all turned out!’ marvelled the friends. ‘Maybe’, responded the man. 

As my grandfather used to say: you always never know. And that’s about as optimistic as I can get about Brexit. In the miraculous event that it does turn out to have been a good thing, it certainly won’t have been due to any great insight on the part of the British public or government. All this fear-fuelled, inward-looking, belt-tightening, buttock-clenching, navel-gazing, jaw-dropping, teeth-grinding, brow-furrowing, brain-melting, fist-pumping, side-swiping, finger-licking, flag-waving bingo-jingoism will have to go sooner or later, along with all the other uptight –isms of the receding age. It’s a mystery why we refuse to make it easy on ourselves when there are so many other, better things to be doing.