The Sad Tale of the Very Silly Thing: A Brexit bedtime story

Once upon a time, there was a man who decided to do a silly thing. He didn’t realize it was a silly thing at the time, that came later, as is often the way when doing silly things.

Now this man ruled a kingdom that called itself united, although some people weren’t so sure about that but that is a tale for another day.

The kingdom had many friends who lived nearby, and from time to time they would help each other. If one friend had no money, the others would give them some. If one friend had no food, the others would share theirs.

And everyone was free to go wherever they pleased.

Which some people thought was quite nice.

But others in the kingdom didn’t like these friends and thought they were sneaky and up to no good.

So they persuaded the man to do the silly thing which, as we said at the start of our story, he didn’t know was a silly thing.

He also didn’t think the silly thing would ever happen. Not really. But it did! It happened! And the man was so surprised that he ran away.

A great confusion gripped the kingdom, and half the people wondered what had just gone on. The other half were obviously under the influence of some weird spell that made them believe not having friends anymore was a good thing, and not a silly thing at all.

Whenever anyone asked, they would chant words like “borders”, “sovereignty” and “control” but they could never quite explain what they meant.

Time passed. And then a lady became the new ruler of the kingdom to replace the man who ran away. She promised to make it all better and make everything in the land all lovely again (although it wasn’t lovely for everyone but that is also a tale for another day).

But the kingdom’s friends weren’t convinced and kept asking: “Are you really sure you want to do this? I mean, like, really sure?”

And the lady replied: “Yes. Absolutely, certainly, almost probably. Maybe.”

Which, as you might imagine, made the friends even more confused.

Time passed. There was lots of talking, some of it in the kingdom and some of it where the friends lived, in a huge hall full of flags and jugs of water. Some of the men who were supposed to be helping the kingdom got very angry and decided they weren’t going to talk any more and they also ran away. But the lady didn’t, although some people wanted her too.

By now, a lot of the people in the kingdom were very angry and a lot were very bored.

Then the lady said she had some exciting news. The kingdom and the friends had finally agreed how to make the silly thing not so silly! Hurrah!

But wait, some people said, the thing you say will fix the silly thing is just as silly as the silly thing was! Boo!

The lady was in a bad mood now. She told them they were being very naughty and they would discuss this later, adding “borders”, “sovereignty” and “control” for good measure.

And although it was nearly Christmas, lots of people in the kingdom felt quite sad because they weren’t sure they would live happily ever after.

The End (not).