Corvid Sketch: The Road to Brexit - Expect Queues

 

Originally posted 8th December 2020

As the ancient Chinese proverb goes: the road to Brexit is paved with poor intentions, fishing tensions and Macron’s election apprehensions. Yes, while you are busy worrying about whether you have enough room in the bubble to squeeze in your nan or not, the broken down truck of Brexit trundles on. It’s almost at its scheduled destination, just state aid, quotas, long waits, Boris himself and the threat of Kentish secessionism in the way now.

So where are we at? Well the transition period expires on the 1st January. No deal is looking likely but negotiations are continuing. The sticking points appear to be whether the prospect of UK state assistance to companies trading with the EU have an unfair advantage. Plus a political bargain to be made on fishing access. The nearer European neighbours want their fleets to be able to fish UK waters and many Brexit-voting fishermen don’t want that to happen. But in retaliation said neighbours are willing to withhold access to mainland fish markets for British exporters.

Does something smell fishy here? (Yeah i went there. Sorry. Corvid-19 is legally required to make that joke, that’s EU comedy regulations for you). Yes something does smell fishy… one of the biggest blockers (apart from Boris) is President Macron, facing an election in 2022 and in current polling he’s dipping below the acceptable face of facism, Marie Le Pen. Like so many European centrists, Macron is trying to out-hardline the hardliners with halibut the unlikely battle/fishing ground.

France isn’t the only close ally upset with Britain’s Brexiting. Incoming US President Joe Biden has made a particular point of warning the UK not to undermine the Good Friday Agreement. One of the most curious responses to his election came from the latest of our series of backbench MPs you’ve never heard of, John Redwood. The Member for Wokingham penned a letter to the President-elect claiming Brexiteers had a bigger mandate than the President and concerns about an Irish hard border were ‘false EU rumours’. In other news, incoming US security chiefs have added the name ‘Osama Bin-John Redwood’ to their predator drone target list.

Meanwhile preparations for our deal or no-deal, red, white and blue Brexit are looking particularly grey. Grey being the colour of the concrete being poured for a 1,700 truck Lorry park in Kent. Overlooked by the picturesque 13th century church in Servington, the site will be used to hold queues of vehicles waiting to clear customs checks at the border. Aside from fears over pollution and noise, one of the biggest concerns is a potential increase in nearby dogging: the ancient British tradition of engaging in group sex at 4am in a vVolvo parked in a layby.

It’s not just carnal fun in cars that the county of Kent is courting, but a new land border with the rest of England. Before they join the 48 hour queue of earthly pleasures, lorry drivers will not be able to enter the county unless they have paperwork ready for the border - essentially creating another border. The world being what it is - this has spawned a number of twitter based Kentish independence movements… and i’m only 52% sure they are joking...

Time for a resolution is getting tight. As of Monday evening, the negotiators on both sides had come to a stalemate. Boris and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen will meet later in the week to try and find a breakthrough. As if the stakes couldn’t get any higher, no deal Brexit may result in huge border queues putting a certain frozen coronavirus vaccine at risk. Who knew mRNA would hate sitting in a lorry for hours on end as much as the rest of us?

Luckily, despite the UK getting ourselves into this mess, mis-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has popped up to remind us that we are the greatest country in the world because we authorised the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine first. You know, better than the Germans who funded it, Turkey who produced the scientists who designed it and the Belgians who manufacture it. Not to mention the French laughing their heads of because they are on the side of Calais closest to production! Viva la vaccine!

* Corvid-19 would like to apologise if any details in this sketch or associated ranting is inaccurate. Mid-way through researching Brexit, the author lost the will to live and threw themselves off the White Cliffs of Dover, narrowly missing Nigel Farage in a gunboat at the bottom. Upon death, the author was met by three spirits, acting on behalf of UK Border Force. It was promptly explained that attempting to exit this mortal realm via the edge of the Kent special area without filling out the requisite forms was a violation of the Customs Bill. The author was subsequently fined £85 and sent back to where they f*cking came from, namely life.