From a splendid Private Eye cover
Most of my non-Tory, Remainer friends are resigned to a Boris Johnson victory.
Hideous a prospect as that may be, they say enough of the public has swallowed his incessant burbling about an "oven-ready" deal "ready to go", or are so repelled by the thought of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister, that a liar, opportunist and bully will, if not cruise back into Downing Street, secure what he needs to govern.
For Brexiters, except the neanderthals who longed to see Nigel Farage - or, for all we know, Tommy Robinson - in or close to power, the future is glowing.
There'll be a windfall for the NHS - OK not the equivalent of £350m a week as Boris and other Leave leaders falsely pledged in 2016 but hey, doesn't everyone tell porkies to win votes? - and work may even start on all those brand new hospitals we've been promised.
And as for those 50,000 new nurses ... well, we will all be able to marvel at the modern definitions of "new" and "50,000".
Donald Trump will cheerfully push aside his America First policy, on which he relies for his redneck votes, and ride to the rescue of Lil Ole Britain.
There'll be a whopping trade deal to make all the lost business and jobs, sacrificed at the altar of "getting our country back innit?", seem like insignificant details of a famous victory.
He'll make no demands for profitable bits of the NHS. The pound may plummet (again - Brexit is good at having that effect) and Priti Patel's refinement of the New Order's anti-foreigner principles may drive tourists away as well as crippling businesses galore. But it will all be worth it. And in the warm spirit of seeking to heal wounds, and unite a torn country, Salut! offers its own post-election programme of goodies for the great 17.4m (or that proportion of them still alive).
I refer not to the 17.4m or 67 per cent who voted remain in 1975 but our cuddly compatriots (same number but only 52 per cent) who, like turkeys viewing Christmas with relish, expressed the will of the people in 2016.
In 2020, Britain will throw off the shackles of the wicked EU, just as Jacob Rees-Mogg predicted, and throw away the trade on which our nation depends and the cherished freedom of European movement that has enriched so many of our lives.
Olive branches will be offered both ways.
Remainers undertake:
* Never again to suggest Leave voters are racist, xenophobic, far right monsters, economically illiterate or plain thick
* Look on benignly and without comment when a Leave-voting relative or friend puffs out the chest to acclaim Boris's "get Brexit done" mantra
* Accept that even no-dealers do not necessarily want the closure of Nissan and other manufacturing plants where the managements have repeatedly warned of the inevitable serious consequences. If that fails, they will just repeat what Jeremy Hunt said during the Tory leadership campaign, when he insisted he would look any employer in the face and say wrecked businesses and lost jobs were just the price of democracy
* To stay out of Wetherspoon pubs so Leavers can feel comfortable in their own exclusive company
Leavers shall promise to:
* Accept that when the axe falls and jobs are duly cut, they will automatically stand at the head of the queue for any redundancies at their places of work
* Limit their EU travel to Magaluf (few will actually mind)
* Expel the odd misfit from the Brexit or Conservative Party if shown by media investigations to be racist lowlife (while reserving the right to attack the media for adopting below-the-belt methods to catch them out)
* Form their own (very long) queues at airport passport checks
* Submit to their own special currency exchange rates
And as the drawbridges are raised, civilised Britons will stay up hoping to see Rees-Mong's defeat and start preparing to move to Scotland or continental Europe. Or wish they'd given Corbyn a chance.
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