Talking about Brexit

New Metaphors for Brexit

OK, metaphors are linguistic devices used to describe by means of vivid comparison. To grasp the entire Brexit debate we need to represent it in imagery that also illuminates what has gone on and points to the future.

Using the parallel of a travelling car, Brexit can be portrayed as a journey on which our nation is being transported. Presently driven by Theresa May the destination is hazy because it is a dream. The false prospectus portrayed to us by ‘Leave’ Leaders assumes our neighbours in Europe will be agreeable to granting us advantages in unrestricted world trading while preserving close ties with their economies. This disadvantages them, so they simply will not do it. This truth is the brick wall the car is on collision course with, whoever might be driving.

All deals are bad roads full of potholes, sheer drops each side, with no lighting, and inferior to the road we have been cruising for 45 years.

You cannot take the egg out of the omelette either, my old favourite metaphor.  We are inextricably swirled together since our ancestors’ land bridge across the North Sea, the Roman, Viking, and Norman invasions, Waterloo, the World Wars I and II and so on. A glance at the last century bears testimony to our location mixed in the omelette, so historically, geographically, culturally and economically we will continue to be part of our local regional mass.