Coincidentally, the American election happened exactly three months after ours. This caused me to reflect – I was considerably less stressed for our ‘Genny Lecs’ than I was for the American election, likely because we all knew Sunak would not survive. I was also struck by the intensity and formality of the US election, partly because the vote tracker on the Guardian website seemed mega serious, but also because, as a UK citizen, I am privy to the delights of local British politics. As July 5th loomed, I became aware of two things simultaneously: local politics are far more exciting than national ones and that, if you’ve had more than four pints, the Euros are quite entertaining…
Things can only get better! Cast your mind back to election day – Keir Starmer has finished hoovering Number 10, England will be playing in the Euro semi-finals, and Liz Truss has uploaded her CV to Indeed. As Waitrose shoppers made themselves a consolatory bowl of all-bran, a grey dawn spread across a hopeful Britain, bringing anguish to those with children at private school. Finally, the Inverness constituency scored the final goal of the political Premier League, and everyone went back to bed.
For the few weeks before the election and Euro final, Jude Bellingham and Kier Starmer came to represent identical values: hope. But this is not the first time politics and football have become conflated. ‘Brexit tackles’, according to Urban Dictionary occur when ‘one goes for a tackle to deliberately shit on their opponent’ and is ‘typically done to take an opposing player out of the match.’ It is most commonly seen in amateur football, such as Sunday League games. Based purely on this definition, branding a particularly violent tackle used to remove someone from a game is undeniably apt. We did clumsily and violently hurl ourselves from the European Union. However, this inference does not adequately tackle (!!!) the nuances of a ‘Brexit tackle.’
To truly understand the meaning of a ‘Brexit tackle,’ we must first consider the use of the adjectival ‘Brexit’ in other areas, the most popular being the phenomena of the ‘Brexit geezer.’ Also known as a ‘Brexit geeze’, these individuals are exclusively male and often bald with an insatiable thirst for Stella Artois, gravy, and Wetherspoons breakfasts. But is this branding linked to voting trends? Marginally, more men than women voted in the Brexit referendum, and 55% of those men voted to leave, so the average Brexit voter could well resemble an overweight man hunched over a Toby Carvery, although the correlation between Brexiteers and loving a carvery is not on the Brexit wiki page. However, ‘could’ is the key word here. The prolific Brexiteers – Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson etc – could look like our Stella enjoyer in another life, but they don’t. Why do we not picture a ‘Brexit geeze’ as a slimy rich man in a suit?
Partly, classism, but I believe this is also because the word ‘Brexit’ has taken on a new life detached from politics. ‘Brexit,’ although inextricable from its origin, captures an unashamed, clumsy excess which is simultaneously insulting and surprisingly endearing. (Obviously, I do not find Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage endearing, but some do, I am told.) After all, there is a certain art in someone’s uncle putting his whole beer belly into two-footing a 17-year-old, before innocently bellowing ‘GOT THE BALL REF’.
If politics can provide and share language with football, there must be fundamental similarities. The sincerity, gratuity and conspicuousness of a ‘Brexit tackle’ on serene pitches on a Sunday evokes the same feeling as watching foreign policy be debated at my local hustings by a man wearing a waistcoat covered in huge buttons.
Truly, the drama of general elections pales in comparison to local hustings. Just as the Euros lacked the entertainment factor of two-footing 17-year-olds, the general election debates couldn’t hold a candle to the suspense and intrigue created by my local candidates. One candidate, who owned a nightclub in a town famed for its orchid collection, wore flesh-toned tight trousers, carving an impressive mooseknuckle, illuminated by the strip lights of my town hall. Another candidate expressed concern over the fate of the constituency thanks to Bitcoin (that famed destroyer of rural towns) and suggested investing our money in gold. As the evening continued, impassioned audience members queried the Israel/Palestine issue, the climate crisis, and “why has Rishi Sunak stopped me from building my shed? It doesn’t affect him. No one goes on that bit of grass anyway.” By half past ten, the Reform candidate was sweating like a nun in a strip club, and one button-covered candidate seemed on the brink of recommending his favourite brand of tin foil hats. Thankfully, for those concerned about the bar closing before the hustings finished, the moderator told the candidates to shut it, and the night was over. Instead of feeling as if I’d just watched a fundamental part of British democracy take place, I felt like I’d finished an episode of This Country.
While this was by no means unwarranted, it made me a little dismissive of my local politics. Of course, the Prime Minister has nothing to do with your shed! There are real issues to be discussed here! But I decided this was sanctimonious. The whole point of politics is not big buildings and dramatic election statistics on BBC News. Politics should look like its people, and during my hustings, it did. In the same way that Brexit tackles, uncles, and beer bellies are the foundations of British football, mooseknuckles, buttons, and sheds contributed to the foundation of British politics that night. If you enjoy one, you shouldn’t dismiss the other, and I look forward to seeing more sheds and Brexit tackles as Starmer’s tenure continues.