Stranger than fiction

With the announcement that the new Dr Who is to be a woman, something about our public discourse in the UK has been brought into sharp focus. The extraordinary reactions of outrage, fury and joy that flooded social media seemed, to non-aficionados, a bit weird. But perhaps only appropriate to the times in which we live – because, let's face it, the UK has gone a bit weird recently.

And maybe that weirdness has come about because we've become accustomed to discussing fiction as if it's more important than reality.

Maybe we should pause to consider what purpose language serves. Language is an extraordinarily powerful tool, possibly defining the gap between humankind and other animals. Nevertheless, it is not unlimited in its capacity and yet in our public dialogue we have allowed ourselves to overlook its shortcomings. The daily discussion is carried out from an assumption that if something can be expressed linguistically, then it must exist. And clearly this is not so. The noun “unicorn” exists and it is therefore perfectly possibly to construct a sentence along the lines of “I would like a unicorn for my birthday”. However, despite its undoubted grammatical correctness, the sentence has no meaning in the real world.

Unfortunately, much of the so-called debate around Brexit is couched in such non-sentences. All along, the Brexit Leaders have peddled lies and fantasies. Such is the hubris of Bristish nationalism that it's possible the leaders themselves even believed some of the dreams. And beautiful dreams they were in some cases – who wouldn't want an extra £350m a week for our NHS? Who wouldn't want to think that our nation could be entirely and exclusively self-referential in its decision-making? Who wouldn't want the chance to recover the prosperity of our fishermen? Who wouldn't want to reduce the burden of paperwork and regulation? If all of this could be gained at absolutely no cost, as we were repeatedly assured, the only surprising thing about the referendum is that Brexit was backed by merely 52% of voters, and not 100%.

The very question of the referendum ballot-paper itself was a spectacular failure of language: “should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Belatedly, the debate shows just how unrealistic a question that was. Just because the vocabulary exists to frame the question in such simple binary terms, it does not follow that a simple binary answer ever existed. Equivalents might be “are men better than women?” Are cats blacker than dogs?” “Are chairs more comfortable than sofas?” Each one needs unpacking and considering in relation to specific circumstances and the answer will be different each time.

What was never discussed by the Brexiteers was the issue of trade-offs. Nothing is for nothing and that's true for all of us in every single transaction of daily life. Want a bigger house? Fine – but you'll need a bigger mortgage and possibly therefore need to work longer hours. Want to go further afield for your holiday? Fine, but the travel-time will be longer and you may need some jabs. Want to change the TV channel from BBC 1 to ITV? Fine, but it might annoy others in the room who are engrossed in the current programme.

Remainers took for granted the issue of trade-offs. Yes, we have lost some sovereignty over the last few years, but in return we have gained an input into decision-making in other countries. Yes we have opened our borders to EU migrants, but we have gained a massive and crucial workforce to keep the NHS functioning. Yes we agreed not to negotiate our own trade deals – but we have benefitted from the vastly superior buying-power of 27 other nations combined.

Theresa May's red lines look increasingly absurd, along with Boris Johnson's fatuous “have our cake and eat it” remark. Our Prime Minister may talk of a red, white and blue Brexit but as a concept in real life it means nothing. Until David Davis stops wasting Michel Barnier's time in Brussels and starts talking about reality instead of his fictional world of never-ending cake, the impasse only deepens.

And until the electorate's level of indignation at the destruction of our country matches the anger at the gender-change of a fictitious Time Lord, the domestic pressure on our politicians to work in our favour remains barely luke warm.