After Brexit

By Graham Pryor

In 2016, Britain’s political class brought schism and rancour to the nation, the referendum on membership of the European Union (EU) dividing countries, workplaces and families in a manner unseen since the seventeenth century. The government’s incompetence displayed in the subsequent withdrawal negotiations did nothing to heal the rift in society and, following the United Kingdom’s eventual exit from the EU, the opposing sides, Leaver and Remainer, continued their hostilities. As economic and social conditions worsened, civil war erupted onto the streets. In this unhappy shape the nation was prey to all manner of self-styled saviours. One, a visitor from a Britain of the future, becomes the medium through which to escape the miserable conditions that the politicians had naïvely delivered. But is it possible truly to escape the past?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244140441

Graham Pryor

Graham Pryor studied American Studies and English at the University of Hull. Subsequently, he pursued a career in information management, leaving his childhood home in Hythe, Kent, for the north-east of Scotland, where he has lived and worked for the past forty years. Cerberus is his fifteenth novel and, he says, his favourite.

Book preview

After Brexit

After Brexit

by

Graham Pryor

After Brexit

Historical note

In 2016, to appease the growing ranks of Eurosceptics in his party, and to head off competition from the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), who were vying for leadership of the right of UK politics, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron called a referendum on  membership of the European Community (EU). The country was immediately divided between ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’, with the rift  on a scale that had not been seen since the 1640s.

The vote was eventually won on a small margin by the Leavers, support having come predominantly from the elderly and those of the electorate without tertiary education, whilst many voters used the referendum to express their hostility to the political class in general rather than a desire to leave the EU. Scotland and Northern Ireland  voted markedly in favour of Remain.

In the immediate aftermath, Cameron abandoned his promise to remain in post and was replaced by Theresa May, previously Home Secretary. Her coterie of supporters included a number of ambitious individuals, notably the ex-Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Both of them had retracted their initial support for Remain and became devoted Brexiteers.  Their management of Britain after the vote was made more difficult by the machinations of extremist Tory Eurosceptics, with organised agitation led by the MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. Two years of irritable negotiation with the EU Commission over the terms of Britain’s departure produced a draft deal that no-one found acceptable and May was deposed.

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Some of the characters in this tale are based upon real individuals, but the thoughts and deeds they express are the invention of the author.

Copyright © 2018 by Graham Pryor

All rights reserved. This book and any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN 978-0-244-14044-1

First printing: 2018

Front cover flag concept created by Starline - Freepik.com

Contents

1 –

The Hand of God

2 – Very Clear

3 – Magic

4 – Humans

5 – Fox

6 – Disciples

7 – Brava

8 – Kit-Kat

9 – Distraction

10 – Wisdom

11 – Transport

12 – Satisfaction

1-    The Hand of God

I’ve said it before, there are too many people. The old man dug his knife into the white-scrubbed wood of the kitchen table and, as if he’d found a nugget of gold, inspected the splinter he’d prised thoughtlessly away. He seemed disorientated, like a man who had just awoken from a reverie.

And what’s that got to do with any of this? asked the younger man, gesticulating widely around the room, seeming to describe the whole world in the arc of his arm.

The old man sighed, a great whoosh of hot air gushing from his lips that parted the whiskers of his beard.

Just about everything, he explained, without offering any real clarity to his spoken thoughts. It’s been at the root of things for a good number of years.

Mmmm, the younger man pondered. Well, there sure are too many of your sort, I grant you. Seventy per cent, they say. Seventy percent of the Leavers were over sixty-five. Is that what you’re meaning?

The old man scowled and fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. He tapped one loose from the plain white packet and struck a match on the side of his mug of tea. By the look of him he wasn’t exceptionally old; his long hair and whiskers still retained its youthful ginger, his eighty-plus years showing only in a few streaks of silvery grey; his bare arms were sinuous and strong. He drew deeply and unfashionably on the long cigarette.

I was in the minority. Always have been. I wouldn’t be here now, would I, if I hadn’t been with Remain. So don’t give me any of your cheek. He stuck out his chin, dismissively. But back then, before the disaster, there were plenty who were campaigning to slow it all down. Attenborough, for one. He wasn’t all fish and gorillas, let me tell you. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, that was his mantra.

Like I said, what’s that got do with the here and now? The younger man was stubborn.

Because. Because if there were far fewer humans on the go we probably wouldn’t be so keen to kill them. We’d negotiate, we’d pull together, in spite of our differences. Trouble with your generation is you don’t remember what those differences are – or should I say used to be?

Well, the younger man bridled, don’t let Dobbo hear you talk like that. I don’t see him negotiating with the enemy any time soon.

With the wisdom of age, or so he thought, the old man was keen not to continue with an explanation that he assumed was far over the head of his companion. Where is Dobbo anyway, he asked.

Johnson. There was word he was hiding out only a day’s hike away. Fat git, we may have him yet. Dobbo won’t let him off with burying any differences.

So, it all comes down to revenge in the end. I see. Not what I’d call a noble motive. Not a very practical one either.

That’s traitorous talk.

I thought the Leavers were the traitors. They brought us to this.

Hah! Yeah, and they called us anti-British.

"Aye. Well, sometimes treachery is borne of ignorance. Errare est humanum I think is the phrase."

"You’re sounding more like Johnson every day. You know, I worry about you. But remember, the killer is in the rest of the phrase: in errare perseverare diabolicum – to persist in error is diabolical, which is what they did."

Good to know you had a bit of learning, comrade. I misjudged you. And yes, you’ll never hear a politician admit to error.

Mitch, the younger of the two men, drummed his fingers on the barrel of his machine pistol. Seneca, wasn’t it? I picked up all these quotes at school but I’m hopeless at remembering who said them.

"Well, the one that sticks in my mind is of course Brexit Means Brexit, and we know who said that. The older man, Ray, rubbed his hands together and gave a rueful grin. Have you been to take a look? he asked. Central arch, Westminster bridge, she’s hanging there still, all dry and shriveled now, with her infamous slogan painted in red above her head. Now that’s what I call a backstop."

Traitor’s Gate might have been more fitting. Down at the Tower. Still, we can keep that delight for Johnson, if we take him alive.

Alive or dead, it would be nice to see the lot of them strung up together, after what they did. Even now, after all these years. Not forgetting Cameron, of course. He’s the one that lit the match in the first place. Head on a spike for David Cameron, I can tell you. Ray stabbed his blade into the table-top with so much force of ire it stuck fast.

Hey, man, Mitch looked up anxiously; don’t go wrecking Dobbo’s kitchen. He’s very particular about his mum’s what-nots.

Yeah, what’s going down with my mum’s what-nots? The kitchen door swung back with a crash against the old dresser behind it, the round face of their leader, Dobbo, mooning into the room, wearing a look that was somewhat sheepish. His rough estuary English always seemed too loud for his stature, a diminutive and slight figure in a tired camouflage jacket and leggings. People who knew him would remark his bark’s worse than his bite, yet he was known to be a hard case when it came to dealing with Brexiteers. He waited for an answer and, when none was forthcoming, threw himself into the only vacant wooden cottage chair and shuggled it closer to the stove.

Johnson? ventured Mitch, eager to know.

Fucking McTaggart, snapped Dobbo. "I’ve been with McTaggart all morning and he’s given me no end of a guts ache.

Euan McTaggart was commander north of the border, an erstwhile SNP member of the Scottish Parliament. He’d been a sound campaigner since the conflict had seized the UK populace but the trust barrier wedged between the constituent nations had never gone away.

He’s been going on about independence again. I keep trying to get through to him, if the Scots go their own way we’re done for here. All of us, north and south of the border.

He’s just trying it on, wants to be the big man. Ray lit another cigarette from the smouldering dog-end between his fingers. There are plenty of wise young heads amongst his troops won’t go with his obsession. He’s almost my age, he’d better watch he doesn’t fall down the generation gap.

It was actually a defining characteristic of the men under Dobbo’s command, indeed it was the same for all the regional commands. In the EU referendum of 2016 seventy-five percent of voters aged twenty-five and below had been for Remain. Unfortunately, not enough of this disaffected age group had turned out to vote, not to mention the under eighteens who watched as their future prospects were snatched away from them without there being an opportunity to register an opinion. Consequently, the largest proportion of the guerilla army comprised men for whom middle age still sat on a remote horizon; many of them, like Mitch, being among the first generation to have reached the age of majority after 2016.

It’s what it looks like, replied Dobbo, gravely. We need to look solid if Brussels are going to extend a helping hand. It’s all about appearances.

Well, there you are. Ray sounded relaxed despite Dobbo’s obvious anxiety. They’re not going to welcome the Jocks back either if they’re seen as a rag-tag crowd of tossers who can’t stick with their closest neighbours.

Mmmm, Dobbo sounded unconvinced. Bloody career politician. How did we get saddled with McTaggart anyway?

Dig any latrine and a politician will find the most advantageous place for his fat arse to perch and shit. There was no love lost between Mitch and the political class. Someone will have to take him down.

Hey, hey, laughed Ray, don’t you go likening our sovereign nation to a latrine. And as for taking him down, your quaint expression would bring