A rare example of a positive consequence from the UK’s choice to divorce
itself from its closest neighbours and trading partners in the European Union has been its boon for the art of satire.
It's opportune to pay tribute to the creative thinking and the inspired artistry of cartoonists.
Their lampooning has provided succinct and poignant commentary on Parliament’s inability to agree on anything.
Let's remind ourselves of important dates from the recent past.
The referendum took place on 23 June 2016. Following the result to leave (against the Government's stated position) and the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister, his successor Theresa May called a General Election to increase the Conservative majority in Parliament.
The election, dubbed a car crash, took place 8 June 2017 resulting in a "hung Parliament," thereby depriving the Conservatives of a majority (against the PM's stated objective). Her mantra of "strong and stable Government" was replaced by terms like weak and wobbly.
Prior to the election, the new PM had acted to deliver on the wishes of 17.4 million people by invoking Article 50 of the EU treaty in March 2017.
Following strenuous negotiations (at a cost to the Government of three Secretaries of State for "exiting the EU"), a Withdrawal Agreement was reached on 14 November 2018 with the European Commission.
It's opportune to pay tribute to the creative thinking and the inspired artistry of cartoonists.
Their lampooning has provided succinct and poignant commentary on Parliament’s inability to agree on anything.
The referendum took place on 23 June 2016. Following the result to leave (against the Government's stated position) and the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister, his successor Theresa May called a General Election to increase the Conservative majority in Parliament.
The election, dubbed a car crash, took place 8 June 2017 resulting in a "hung Parliament," thereby depriving the Conservatives of a majority (against the PM's stated objective). Her mantra of "strong and stable Government" was replaced by terms like weak and wobbly.
Prior to the election, the new PM had acted to deliver on the wishes of 17.4 million people by invoking Article 50 of the EU treaty in March 2017.
Following strenuous negotiations (at a cost to the Government of three Secretaries of State for "exiting the EU"), a Withdrawal Agreement was reached on 14 November 2018 with the European Commission.
To the horror of Brexiteers, two “Brexit Days” have passed by (29 March and 12 April 2019) as the "Mother of Parliaments" has failed to agree on an exit strategy. The Withdrawal Agreement has been rejected in record defeats for any British Government.
And so, the UK remains in the EU which has approved a further extension to Hallowe'en 2019 when the banshees appear - maybe in a big red bus.
Into the breach of acrimony and uncertainty, a sense of humour comes to the rescue.
The PM's loss of her Parliamentary majority and subsequent striking of a "confidence and supply" deal with Northern Ireland's DUP marked the start of a pictorial deluge.
As the "clock continues to tick," the satirists' targets have moved progressively to reflect the general debate about events and issues such as immigration and the Good Friday Agreement.
At the outset of negotiations, the European Commission set the agenda by defining the priorities. These were citizens rights (UK citizens living and working in the EU, and EU citizens in the UK); the size of the divorce bill; and arrangements for the UK's land border with the EU.
It is the latter which emerged as the crunch issue which has split HM Parliament to stasis. The failure of Parliament to agree on an exit plan over the two-year A50 period approached crisis-point especially in the approach to the Brexit-day deadline.
Satirists in the Ulster Fry had mimicked the UK Government's publications (August 2018) about Brexit preparations by publishing a 12-stage guide which included this borderline advice:-
The border theme inspired other artwork. Examples include:-
and striking the right note, a musical parody of the Stealers Wheel song from the film "Reservoir Dogs":-
and these cute pictorial images:-
One objective which Brexiteers have emphasised aggressively has been that of protecting "the precious union" - meaning the United Kingdom and not the European Union.
Parliamentary acceptance of the Withdrawal Deal has floundered on this very issue, based primarily on a lack of confidence and supply from the Government's DUP allies and their cohorts in the Conservative Party's "European Research Group."
As events have developed, however, uncompromising adherence to that dogma risks yielding the opposite result, with unintended prospects which could endanger that union.
Ireland provides one example. The DUP/ERG demand to ditch the insurance cover, a protocol to protect the Good Friday Agreement, is seen by the EU as threatening to the peace process, the fragility of which has been fatally demonstrated recently.
Otherwise, the Brexit campaign pledge that helped Leave to win obviates the need for the protocol to be activated. That promise, assuming that it was truthful and honest, asserted confidently that the UK would succeed in obtaining international trade deals globally including with the EU.
In any event, Northern Ireland voted by a clear majority to remain in the EU, the single market and the customs union; in addition to which its business and farming organisations have articulated support for the Withdrawal Agreement. Surely in the event of Brexit actually happening, a compromise to the will of those most affected deserves consideration.
The other example is the challenge from Great Britain's northern-most nation which voted emphatically to remain and whose Government wants another referendum if the UK departs from the EU. The cartoonists move quickly:-
On occasion, other events have attempted to remove Brexit from the headlines for a few days. As often as not, however, tales of sinking ships, car crashes and cliff edges resonate metaphorically with the cartoonists, as in December 2018 when this happened:-
Week on week, political pundits in the weekend broadsheets and on serious news programmes proferred earnest predictions about what would happen next. Here is one relatively polite example:-
In spite of public opinion seemingly turned off by the political acrimony, negative voting and repeated indecision, viewing figures for news programmes belied the turn-off theorists. Statistics demonstrated that people were becoming addicted to Parliamentary suspense as if it were the latest fad in reality TV.
Likewise the satirists could not miss out on perfect material.
For example:-
German cartoonists also had a bare cheek:-
Sometimes it was the ardent Brexiteers who incurred the cartoonists' attention. These three, for example:-
Even the sister of one of these male celebrities grabbed headlines as the absurdity of the UK contesting elections to Europe's Parliament in May 2019 excites Britain's politicians:-
Pride of place, however, has to go to the dominant character for her central role in the increasingly farcical suspense.
The PM has inspired many Brexit cartoons of which this is a small sample:-
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| Sod them, think I'll go and live in Ireland |
©Michael McSorley 2019
