BAD news. Big Ben will not bong for Brexit. Too few of the £500,000 needed has been raised to allow the “most iconic timepiece on Earth” (courtesy Tory Brexiteer Mark Francois) to ring at 11pm (midnight in Brussels) on January 31.
Instead, Union flags will be flown at Westminster and a clock counting down the momentous event will be projected on the walls of Number 10.
Is that it? Three-and-a-half years of wrangling to throw off the tyranny of the European Union? Three-and-a-half long years of the British public being constantly reminded of Northern Ireland’s existence and its irritating border?
Surely a soon-to-be-great-again nation should enjoy festivities which will mark its exit from the EU in grand style?
With just a week-and-a-half to go, new thinking is required, like the innovative British jams and preserves Europe will be crying out for come February 1.
To that end, can I present televisual spectacular, the all-day celebratory Brexit show BrexitFest? It will combine the best, and crucially cheapest, elements of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, without having to watch Brian May play God Save the Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace or watch the monarch fail to make small talk with Cheryl Tweedy.
In an extravaganza live from glamorous Boston in Lincolnshire (the area with the highest pro-Brexit vote), Nigel Farage, Piers Morgan and Thomas Markle will entertain the kingdom.
The Brexit-agitator-in-chief, daytime TV’s biggest windbag, and father-imagined-by-the-Brothers-Grimm just don’t promote themselves enough, which is why BrexitFest will provide them with the platform they so deserve.
Farage, Morgan and Markle will broadcast to the nation in a thrilling spectacular featuring the best of proper British culture, including two hours of Morris dancing, competitive cheese rolling and a special segment in which all three moan about the EU’s ban on bendy bananas.
Freed from the brutal shackles of Brussels and fresh from an all-night party in Parliament Square, Farage can smoke fags and drink pints in a real British pub, all the while complaining that nothing good ever came from the EU, including his Irish and German ex-wives. Highlights will include an explanation on how to hang the Union flag correctly and a lecture on why permanent immigration should be capped at 50,000 people per year.
New immigration checks will include tests on whether candidates know the rules of cricket, including how to spot LBW, and whether they laugh at Del Boy falling through the bar in Only Fools and Horses. The second test will of course weed out immigrants from former British colonies which are much better than England at its own game.
Without annoying interruptions from Susanna Reid, Morgan will be free to outline his blueprint for a new Britain in which millennial snowflakes, vegans and anyone who has ever appeared on Love Island will be banned. Only meat-eaters, people who think a good slap never harmed anyone and fans of Top Gear will be allowed to remain. But not Remain. No one cares about remoaners any more, a fact Morgan will discuss at length. Warning: segment will include frequent mentions that Morgan is very good friends with Donald Trump.
Markle will of course provide the Brexit/Megxit crossover everyone wants. He may know nothing about Brexit or indeed anything to do with the UK, including the British royal family, but that won’t stop him talking at length about how once-great institutions he has just heard of have been “cheapened” by his own daughter and her outrageous demands to be treated as a sentient human being. At no stage will he be allowed to mention Nazi-sympathiser the Duke of Windsor; Prince Andrew’s dubious links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or the 1987 horror show that was It’s a Royal Knockout!
To those who argue about whether BrexitFest will be an appropriate spectacle, remember, millions of people used to think ‘Allo ‘Allo and Hi-de-Hi! were hilarious, Noel Edmonds was a bona-fide TV star and a man pretending to be best friends with an unruly blue emu was allowed to run amok in our streets. Come January 31, those great days will return. That and blue passports. Which are already being made in Poland.
