No One's Talking About Brexit

Britain has been through a lot in recent months. First, they had a prime minister leadership race, then a general election, then a leadership battle for the Labour party. And now, Brexit is just over 24 hours away (as I'm writing this). Yet, absolutely no one is talking about. Not the media, not Britain, and certainly not Europe!

Brexit is supposed to be happening tomorrow. So far, we have heard almost nothing, not even a murmur to see if the EU are willing to extend the Brexit deadline past the 31st of January.

Why Is No One Talking About Brexit?

For many, myself included, it seems as though Brexit, one of the most polarizing issues of our time in the UK, is now being swept under the rug, so to say. There are many reasons that people have put forward to explain the lack of Brexit on our TVs and radios, but I'm skeptical of most, if not all of them.

We Don't Want to Hear About It

There's an old adage that goes something like "Seeing is believing." The same can be said for this! The government and media alike do not want us to hear about Brexit, because they know full well what the outcome will be: civil war. And no one, and I mean no one, likes a civil war. It just gets so messy.

This is because, for those who don't know much about the Brexit election itself, the vote was heavily skewed. Whilst most of England (minus places such as London), voted to leave, many of the other realms inside the kingdom (yes, 'realms' is the correct term for those of you who didn't know), voted to stay, especially Northern Ireland and Scotland.

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You know what? Brexit isn't going to kill everyone. But the coronavirus might. Everyone, the government and media alike, is so focused on the coronavirus, that Brexit has just left everyone's mind.

Some may claim that it is a mixture. The media is focusing on the coronavirus so much because they don't want to talk about Brexit and the possibilities that come as a result of it. So a scary 'super plague' may be the best way to divert people's attention. Although it is likely to simply be that the coronavirus is seen as more deadly and impactful than Brexit, many would disagree with that.

The Uncertainty

Brexit is basically a synonym at this point for uncertainty. We don't necessarily know the conventions of a post-Brexit Britain. Most people can't tell you how long the transition period is (no, we are not in it already, unless you are reading this post-Brexit.) Most people can't tell you what they'll need to go on a simple day trip to France, most people can't tell you what they'll need to do before Brexit happens, such as registering for certain things if you work abroad or are from abroad, etc.

Article 50 was only placed there as a convention to allow members to believe that they could leave the EU once they joined. No one, not even years after they signed the article into law thought that someone would try it. There were just no conventions put in place that dictated it. Most people didn't even think it was possible for a country to leave the EU.

Passing Other Laws

For the longest time, Brexit has been used by the media to cover up the passing of other laws- the media is so fixated on Brexit, that it forgot how to report on other laws.

Between 2016 and now, there have been thousands, literally thousands of articles published about secret laws that have been passed, that 20 years ago, would've been smack bang on the front page of every newspaper in the world, let alone the UK.

But now, the roles have reversed. People are so fixated on other issues, mainly the coronavirus, that they have neglected Brexit. It's often said that the media is the people's slave, and the media only reports on those things that it believes the people will listen to.

So, instead of Brexit for once, which many people are getting sick and tired of at the moment due to three years of constant bombardment, they are focusing on something else. Usually, this is the latest scandal coming out of the White House, but now, this is seemingly the coronavirus.

It Seems Like People Don't Care

No, I have not just wasted a few minutes of your life to tell you that people do care about Brexit. That is simply not true.

We would expect that this close to arguably the biggest political decision the UK has made since 1945, we would see more of Brexit. We'd see the news rack on about it, no end. We'd see every newspaper banging on about it, no end. But we haven't.

Yes, we've seen a few articles from various newspapers, but not nearly enough. And besides, most of these articles are talking about the last-ditch efforts MPs can take to stop Brexit once and for all, or at least to delay it by a few months.