A Reform-leaning comedy writer on the Isle of Man reads that the press is hunting for remaining Brexiters and offers herself up, with a few conditions
Tuesday, 20 October 2026. Castletown, Isle of Man. In a pub by the harbour, a pint of Okell’s, a packet of pork scratchings, 6.15pm.
The Press Is Looking For Me
I would like to begin by announcing, formally, in this diary, that I am still a Brexiter. I voted Leave in 2016 as a twenty-year-old economics student in Finchley, I have not changed my mind, and I have spent ten years being told by people in Islington that I was either stupid, old or both. I was neither. I was twenty, I had read the treaties and I wanted Parliament to make the laws. I still do.
So I was delighted to read the Daily Mash report that the press is scouring Britain for the remaining Brexiters, after the government suggested closer ties with Europe and the expected uproar did not arrive. Journalists, according to the piece, are combing Stoke and Lincolnshire for between three and fifteen angry Leavers. I would like to save them the petrol. I am here. In a pub in Castletown. Bring a camera. I will do a full interview, provided somebody buys the next pint.
Why We Have Gone Quiet
The Daily Mash suggests the Brexiters have either died, changed their minds or simply run out of energy. As a representative sample of one, I can tell you it is the third. I have not changed my mind. I am just tired. We won a referendum, then spent four years watching Westminster argue about what we meant, then three more years watching it fail to do much with the result. I did not stop believing in it. I stopped believing they would ever do it properly.
The landlord here, a retired fisherman named Juan, which is a proper Manx name and not Spanish, whatever the tourists think, says the island never had to vote on any of it because we were never in the EU in the first place, only in a special arrangement for trade. He says the Isle of Man has been quietly running its own affairs for a thousand years, and that the rest of Britain could have saved itself a lot of bother by asking Tynwald for advice. He is not wrong. He is also on his fourth pint.
Reform, The Camera And The Quiet Part
Since we are on uncomfortable subjects for my side, I want to mention the NewsThump piece on how Reform vowed to expel anyone careless enough to say the quiet part out loud while being filmed, after an undercover investigation recorded councillors and candidates saying things that should never have been said. I vote Reform. I also want to say plainly that some of what was caught on camera was rotten, and the problem is not that it was filmed. The problem is that it was said.
If my party wants to be a serious party of government, and I would like it to be, it needs fewer people who think the only rule is check for a camera first. A good conservative party is built on manners, duty and saying what you mean in public because you would be happy to defend it in private. Margaret Thatcher had many critics, but nobody ever caught her saying one thing in a pub and another on the Today programme. She said the same thing everywhere, loudly, usually in a handbag.
The Right Has A Sense Of Humour, Honestly
People assume right-wing women cannot laugh at themselves. I write comedy for a living, so I would like to correct that. I laughed at the NewsThump headline. I laughed at the Daily Mash. I laugh at my own party roughly twice a week, usually during its press conferences. The only political tribe I know that cannot laugh at itself is the one in Islington that described my referendum vote as a hate crime against croissants.
What I Would Say In The Interview
If the press does find me, here is what I will say. One: Brexit was about who makes the law, not about hating anybody. Two: it has been badly delivered by people who did not believe in it and opposed by people who could not accept it. Three: closer ties with Europe on trade are fine, as long as Parliament makes the decision and the people can sack Parliament. Four: I would like another packet of pork scratchings. That last one is not policy. That is just true.
If the journalists want a photograph, I will even pose. Not with a flag, not with a pint of warm bitter and a scowl, which is how they always draw us, but exactly as I am: a twenty-four-year-old woman in a Barbour jacket from a charity shop in Douglas, holding pork scratchings, reading a book about the Corn Laws, in a pub where the landlord has strong views on the herring quota. That is what a remaining Brexiter actually looks like. It will disappoint them enormously. They wanted a villain. They will get a comedy writer with a snack.
Last Orders
Juan has rung the bell. A tourist from Liverpool at the bar has asked whether I am really a Brexiter, and when I said yes, he said his nan was too and she was the most sensible woman he ever met. We shook hands. He voted Remain. We are going for chips. If the press want the real story about Britain in 2026, it is not that the Brexiters disappeared. It is that we got tired of shouting and went for chips with the other side. That is not defeat. That is the most British outcome possible.