BREXITAMANIA (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug)
- Liam John
- Sep 15, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2019
BrexitaMania, commonly referred to as Brexit Bug, is an infectious disease caused by prolonged exposure to issues, facts and alternative-facts (known pre-2017 as lies) relating to the issue of whether Britain should leave the European Union. The symptoms of the Brexit Bug are most easily described as the polar opposite of Lisztomania: a condition of mass-euphoria, caused by the music of the late-composer Franz Liszt. In cases of Lisztomania, the infected danced for hours and in many cases, their entire lives began to revolve around Liszt. People would publicly humiliate themselves and sometimes even get hurt trying to demonstrate their emotion towards the subject. With Brexitamania, instead of dancing the infected cry. While the non-contagious media try to concentrate on Parliament, ignoring the placard-waving masses, The Guardian recently sent their Political Correspondent Peter Walker down to nearby protest to meet with some of this gloomy bunch. There are two kinds of Brexit Bug, Type-L and Type-R, one obsessing over leaving the EU whilst the other hell-bent on remaining a member. In common they share the fact that neither of them cared about Europe, or in many cases politics, before 2018, and by extension they share the bug. The first, and only noteworthy, person Walker spoke with was Geoff from Milton Keynes. Geoff has Type-L Brexit bug and carries a giant placard with the word “traitors” plastered across it. When confronted about the extremities of his slogan, he told The Guardian: “I thought very carefully about what I said and I mean it.”
“The last three years, these traitors, the majority of parliament, are actively working to rebel against the people. This is a rebellion.”
Some of those infected with Type-L
He then said that he was there, protesting, to discourage civil disobedience. Geoff is a blatant case of Brexitamania-in-denial. The Guardian did speak to some of those infected with Type-R later on, but they seemed eminently more reasonable. Possibly focusing on milder cases displays the underlying possibility that The Guardian suffer from Brexitamania-by-proxy (or media-bias). Worried that Project Fear was beginning to take hold, I took to Twitter to investigate Type-R Brexit bug. There I found two distinct examples that confirmed to me the bug swings just as painfully both ways. The first is EU-Supergirl Madeline Kay. Madeline was first diagnosed in 2016 and her symptoms quickly grew. Madeline’s Brexitamania drives her to dress up as superheroes and led her to win Young European of the Year 2018.
Kay pictured here with the Boris baby
She dropped out of full-time education to join the Liberal Democrats and recently crowdfund a trip around the EU from a country that cites mass-poverty as one of the reasons they voted Leave. Brexitamania can also affect the way we react to political events, there has been little to no reaction from those with Type-L Brexit Bug about Operation Yellowhammer. A leaked governmental report which outlined all the reasons why a No-Deal Brexit would be harmful. Another, more mild but interesting case is that of Our Future, Our Choice co-founder Femi Oluwole. Oluwole, like Geoff, is in denial about his condition. He is known to regularly call into Nigel Farage’s LBC show despite their system of screening callers. This even led him to poorly impersonate a U.S citizen when Farage wouldn’t take his calls. There he was, pleased with himself on live radio putting on a silly accent, hounding Nigel Farage about the complexities of EU-U.K. relations and throwing in a “mann” every so often. Despite the obvious carnage, there appears to be no cure on the horizon. Perhaps a less divisive political narrative three years ago would have served as vaccination but no one can know for certain. Those infected with Brexit Bug, of which there is a growing number, destined to live in the quarantines of their #FBPE or #LeaveMeansLeave echo chambers of Twitter until such time’s as a cure is found. And with Britain’s major political parties enjoying the surge of support, I can’t see it happening any time soon.
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