The Brexit Chronicles

Waiting For The Worms To Come...

Published on May 23rd, 2019. 07.00

Would you like to see Britannia rule again, my friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms.

Would you like to send our coloured cousins home again, my friend?
All you need to do is follow the worms. - Waiting For The Worms, by Pink Floyd.

If an author were to travel thirty years back in time and attempt to have published a factual manuscript describing our present as a novel, their submission would most likely be rejected as being too fanciful to be a credible story: Yet it is this dystopia we inhabit now, and it seems quite likely that another fictional trope is about to be made real.

A frequently used plot element of the dystopian genre is the sudden emergence from outside the established political spectrum of a 'populist' party and it sweeping to power, which seems at least a plausible outcome of today's European Parliament elections. Yes, bizarre and humiliating though it may be, the UK has been on the hustings for the bloc we should have left two months ago, and a party which didn't even exist then is forecast to top the poll in this unwanted de-facto 'Peoples' Vote'.

The startling rise of the Brexit Party from nothing can be considered to be the political equivalent of gasoline splashed over the red-hot embers of our national discontent flashing into an electoral fireball in the face of the deadlocked status quo. Which of the two main parties will be burned the worst remains to be seen; rebellious Tories are predicted to defect en-masse to Nigel Farage's banner, while Labour voters disillusioned with the party's ambiguous stance are expected to divide themselves between the Lib-Dems and the Green Party.

It's a reflection of the state things have got to in the UK that Farage of all people can be seen as a saviour by some, or the least worse alternative by others; but this is where we are now. Some opinion surveys predict the Brexit Party will win more votes than the Labour and Tory parties combined. Not only that, but their support appears to be holding firm at its current high level, and there is the real possibility of the Tories losing all of their MEPs, such is the popular backlash against May's sabotage: Even her promise to meet with the 1922 committee to discuss a timetable for her resignation at some point in the next few months has had about as much of an effect as an airbag deploying in a 150mph car crash; unless the Brexit Party's prospects are being artificially inflated by the media in order to be burst later, a political earthquake greater in scale than the original referendum result is on the cards.

Whatever the outcome of the elections, the results will be delayed: Once the polls have closed, rather than being opened and counted immediately that night as is customary in a general election, the ballot boxes will be transferred to regional counting centres; there to be held awaiting the other EU members to conclude their votes on Sunday, May the 26th before being tallied that evening. Such has our nation's sovereignty been diminished that we can't even count our ballot papers at a time of our choosing for fear of the results somehow influencing electors speaking diverse languages and with different concerns elsewhere on the continent; even the publication of exit polls is prohibited. However it is satisfying to have the failed political class also suffer the exquisite torment of knowing the public's verdict has gone against them, but being forced to abide nerve-wracking days until their fates are declared.

So expectantly we will wait to learn how much of the UK's rotten body politic has been devoured by the worms: The Sunday night results programmes should be historic as well as riveting.