As Brexit lumbers on, readers are finding solace in the sheer ridiculousness of it all

Most days, my job entails a lot of scrolling through social media channels, looking at endless news stories, hot takes, memes and gifs, many of which now relate to the rapid unravelling of the UK over Brexit.

I sometimes wonder what it might have been like to have tools like Facebook and Twitter at our disposal during other major moments in this country’s political history: the Battle of Hastings, the Cromwell era or the Second World War.

Oddly, we’d probably have done a lot less arguing about Churchill, but were the major upheavals experienced by our ancestors really this boring? Would we really have found as much incompetence and buffoonery at which to despair?

As the finish line of this saga is moved from March, to April, to June, to 2020, to the dawn of the next century, we are increasingly finding that the stories people really enjoy reading and sharing are those which point out the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Brexit has now become so utterly tedious, even for the most devoted political anorak, that we are quite literally laughing through tears of despair all over the internet.

When it comes to the top lines – the big May statements, the parliamentary showdowns, and the EU reactions – they come and they go. But leaking roofs and bare bottoms on the glass of the press gallery? You want to read more of it. Politicians tripping over their formerly strongly held positions, some of which they held until only minutes before? The numbers go through the roof.

It seems to me that Brexit is a uniquely laughable national crisis, almost tailor-made for the social media era. Or perhaps social media has taught us how to look on the brighter side of things. Typically, the digital world gets a bad reputation for encouraging our worst instincts, spiralling into a cesspit of humanity, and sucking out our souls, along with our personal information.

But surely it’s all worth it for the occasional laugh we get at comparing Jacob Rees-Mogg to Walter the Softy, or comparing the size of the anti-Brexit march to the pro-Brexit march, or watching a summary of Theresa May’s diabolical premiership put together like a Big Brother evictee’s best bits?

So for as long as the ship continues to sink – with the admirals who crashed it screaming treason at us as we attempt to swim to safety – I say keep tweeting. It just might get us through.

Yours,

Ben Kelly

Deputy social media editor