Brexiter Andrea Jenkyns belongs to the foaming-at-the-mouth wing of the Conservative Party. In her latest statement, she puts her trench foot into her mouth as usual.
Never in the field of human politics was so much owed to so few by so many. Her entrenched wartime metaphor illustrates the fact that Britain is at war. With itself. And like all wars, the result will be pyrrhic at best.
There is no enemy. This is class war, unleashed on The People by unelected figures intent on not paying their dues.
“It is better to go down fighting…” writes Jenkyns, admitting defeat. A pointless, humiliating, glorious defeat like Dunkirk.
The British are good at framing defeat as victory. The Charge of the Light Brigade celebrates the slaughter of hundreds of British horsemen sent against a battery of cannons. It’s like conceding ten goals in a football match, but only remembering the jammy last-minute consolation goal.
The whole subtext is that Jenkyns would prefer subjugation to surrender, because the latter would involve admitting that she was wrong.
We will defeat ourselves on the beaches. We will defeat ourselves in our fields and on our streets. We will cut off our own heads of necessary. That’ll show them who’s boss.
“Surrender to EU demands,” writes Jenkyns, forgetting the fact that it is actually the UK which is making demands and threats. We create the problem, it’s your fault that you don’t have the answers. Dig (yourself into a hole) For Britain!
So tin hats on, canned goods piled up in the Anderson shelter, plenty of blitz spirit. Except that we are our own enemies. Brexit is the cancer of the body politic. Britain is fast becoming the sick man of Europe again.
Our Brexiter friends may go down in history as the first war criminals not associated with any wars. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.