British rodents, most of whom have lived in our island nation since the end of the ice age, are preparing to leave the country en masse, should the UK fail to agree a post Brexit trade deal with the European Union.
“It’s a sad day – many of our member groups have been here since long before the first two legged vermin set foot on the island,” said Hammy Hamster, spokesman for “Rodentia”, the umbrella group representing disparate rodent species throughout the UK.
Standing outside Rodentia’s headquarters, on the riverbank, flanked by his assistants Squirrel Nutkin, Ratty the water vole and Mrs. Tittlemouse, Hamster explained that the difficult decision had been reached by a majority vote of all participating rodent chapters, following news of the imminent departures of Airbus Industries, BMW and the entire UK financial services sector.
“We hear constantly of ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’, but trust me this fuck up is entirely human,” he said explaining that Rodentia’s mice chapter knew which side their bread was buttered on.
“They’re sticking with cheeses…French cheeses. .hallelujah !,” he punned.
In fact, he explained support for the mass abandonment was close to unanimous.
“Our rat chapter was strongly in favour,” he said pointing out their long time symbiotic relationship with the bankers, brokers and commodity traders within the square mile of the city of London.
“Indeed, without them to measure ourselves by, what are we?” asked rat chapter head , Roland Rat, tipping back his cap and giving a wistful twitch of his whiskers.
Hamster conceded though that support from all chapters of Rodentia was not unanimous with the squirrel chapter irrevocably split between the smaller native red grouping who fully support Rodentia’s move, and the rival grey extremists who have never fully adapted to British rodent customs and who favour forming a new nut trading alliance with their North American relatives.
“However it’s wrong to assume all immigrant species support subversive extremist groups,” explained Hamster pointing out that the entire population of European pet hamsters, British ones included, can trace their ancestry back to a single pair who migrated from Syria in 1930.
” Steve Jobs, Paul Anka…Bob Marley….hamsters. Syria isn’t all ISIS, civil war, and refugees ,” he added.
Responding to Rodentia’s warning, leading Brexit campaigner and life member of the BBC’s question time panel, Nigel Farage was typically dismissive.
“This is just another typical example of rats deserting a sinking ship,” he sneered, quickly correcting himself by pointing out that obviously as “any fule kno” – “the ship isn’t actually sinking, and if it is, it couldn’t possibly be my fault.…haha…”
Countering Farage’s criticism Hamster offered a scathing response.
“Frankly, my members are fed up with cheap speciesist hate speech of this nature. Perhaps in the past the odd rodent may have deserted a ship which was sinking – as would any sane creature – what do you think we are, lemmings?” he asked.