IT was always going to happen and I’m only surprised that we didn’t reach this point sooner. As we wearily trudged through eleventy-billion hours of Brexit debates in the House of Commons, there was sure to come a time when pro-EU campaigners would finally resort to that most shocking and long-standing form of democratic protest: public nudity.
It started with the plucky Dr Victoria Bateman, an economics fellow at Cambridge University.
She is a feminist campaigner and an anti-Brexit protester who describes herself as a “passionate Remainer” and has previous for naked protests. She appeared on Radio 4 where she was interviewed by an incredulous John Humphrys with the slogan “Brexit leaves Britain naked” written on her chest.
Shortly after, she appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain where she challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg to a naked debate. The internet, predictably, whipped itself into a bit of a frenzy at the unnerving spectacle of a naked woman who wasn’t being used to sell cars or aftershave.
You can imagine the murmurs of discontent over in the Johnson household, as the penny dropped that a news story was going viral on Twitter which none of their ambitious blonde brood were at the centre of. Enter: Rachel Johnson, who on Thursday stripped on Sky news show ‘The Pledge’ in solidarity with Dr Bateman.
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Alas, as we have become accustomed to from the Johnson clan, she over-promised and undelivered, tweeting out later that she had, in fact, being wearing a boob-tube during the segment.
The logic of the naked protesters is sound. Theresa May has refused to respond to the conventional tactics of Remain campaigners and politicians.
What better way to force the prime minister to listen to their concerns than the threat of mass-nakedness? It’s only a matter of time before Jeremy Corbyn gets in on the action and does PMQs in the buff. Given his woeful performance at the weekly sparring it certainly couldn’t do him any harm. Though his famed vagueness on Brexit may leave viewers confused as to the message that any unveiling of his allotment-honed marrow is sending.
It is telling that those who have got naked so far have been women, driven by the knowledge that their undressed state will garner the publicity that their ordinary, clothed opinions could not.
While we are all rightly concerned over the catastrophic consequences of the No-Deal Brexit that May is recklessly leading us towards, through her strategy of delay and delay and delay some more, we’ve not paid enough attention to the emerging danger of mass nudity.
Many more campaigners and pundits – frustrated with our tin-eared prime minister – are gearing up to get their bits out to stop Brexit.
Where will it end? There is genuine concern that this sweeping new craze will make its way north of the border. It would certainly put a new spin on Sunday Politics Scotland. At this time of the year, Scottish commentators are usually wrapped up warm, their summer bodies carefully insulated in preparation for the two weeks of sunshine we are expecting in August.
I hear the technical minds at BBC Scotland are currently flapping around Pacific Quay in a state of panic as they attempt to source the necessary pixilation equipment to avert disaster.
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Mercifully, back in the Commons, everybody was fully clothed for the Brexit debate Part 354. It was left to hardline Brexiteer David Davies to bring the conversation about our exit from the European Union back to wrinkly body parts.
He ranted about scare stories put out by Remainers on the impact of Brexit on the nation’s sexual health. He dismissed worries of “super gonorrhoea running out of control” and a “shortage of Viagra” shouting: “THEY DO NOT FOOL ME!” while sounding like a man very much in the know.
In reply, the minister responding for the government made a series of jokes about penises and erections, remarking that we’ve been debating Brexit for the aforementioned eleventy-billion hours and that he wanted to “liven things up a bit”.
Yvette Cooper, the de facto leader of the opposition, summed up the situation perfectly. “It is as though we are all just standing around admiring the finery of the emperor’s new clothes when actually the emperor is running around stark naked, and everyone is laughing at us...” she said.
For those struggling to keep track, the final Meaningful Vote will maybe, possibly, perhaps, take place on February 27. It is being billed – as all the others were – as the moment where Something Might Actually Happen. If we carry on as we are then that something may be more distressing than any of us could have imagined. Rumour has it that, in response to “Boobs Against Brexit,” the aptly-named Sir Peter Bone is planning a naked protest of his own: “Dicks For No Deal”.
Quite.
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