Opinion

That was Brexit: the mad energy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but lasting three and a half years

It unearthed some of the worst people in the country – on both sides. And the worst of all were the politicians

Tonight’s Parliament Square party to mark Brexit was hit by a ban on booze, live music and fireworks – the first three in a presumably infinite series of things that we now won’t be able to blame on boring Brussels bureaucrats. Right about now, you’re probably starting to think “Oh my God … what if … what if we were the bastards all along?” Crazy as it may seem on this day of national emancipation, it’s just possible that one day we might yearn to be plugged back into the matrix where it was all someone else’s fault.

Still, to the victor go the spoils. Brexit is done, except for the many big bits that aren’t. All UK humans must absorb the sledgehammer implication of the fact that a man with the mind and moral stature of Nigel Farage is far and away the most successful politician of his generation. Like Farage said last week: “Unless this government drops the ball, and I don’t think it will, you will never, ever see me again.” And like he said this week: “I look forward to a new role with Newsweek, where I shall be commenting on the battles ahead.”

Either way, there are indications that the curtain between reality and metaphor has been finally rent. Consider the fact that on Brexit eve, Farage stood in what appeared to be a London restaurant’s attic and unveiled a hideous portrait of himself. Instead of being accompanied by a brilliant Wildean dandy saying things like, “Nigel – you are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found!”, Farage was instead introduced by occasional Dubai émigré Jim Davidson, who made a joke about France that I can’t lavish a keystroke on. Trivia completists may care to know the title of Nigel’s portrait was Mr Brexit, and not 55?!?!?! – Fuck Me, He Had A Hard Paper Round.

To mark the occasion, the government has newly minted, or reminted, a special Brexit 50p coin. If you get one, hang on to it – it might be worth something one day. Something like 20 euro cents. Or 1/600th of a threadworm tablet under the new US-friendly drug pricing. When coming up with their big Brexit marker, it’s interesting that the Tory right decided to go with pieces of silver, a concept closely associated with historic betrayal. Perhaps they’re trying to reclaim it for themselves, along with Calais, and the idea it’s fine to say the N-word because rappers do it.

They’re certainly using the moment as a fundraising opportunity, and have spent much of the week acting as a sort of off-brand Franklin Mint. Tuesday’s big push alerted buyers to their range of Brexit “merch”, which is exactly how the target market for this stuff talks. A second drive offered people the chance to “own Brexit” in the form of a copy of the withdrawal agreement signed by Boris Johnson. Tickets for the draw are £5. It’s a lovely idea – and is it scalable? Even now, perhaps one of the oddballs hired by Dominic Cummings is working out whether you could technically fund a new hospital by selling copies of the statement “I will build a new hospital” signed by Boris Johnson. Soon enough, the dominant form of intranational trade in the UK will be the exchange of items signed by Boris Johnson. Johnson has long been aware of the value of his signature, which is why he has avoided flooding the market by withholding it from a number of birth certificates.

In terms of economic prospects, meanwhile, it’s a huge psychological boost for Brexit that most of Britain’s newspapers are in favour of it. Remember: always take business advice from journalists, the runaway market leaders in the poorly managed decline sector. Brexit could be the UK pivoting to video. To get a visual feel for what the Daily Express calls “the glorious future”, go online and try loading a Daily Express story. People call Brexit a project of false nostalgia, which here feels right: Renaissance masterpieces were actually downloaded on to canvas quicker than an article headlined “DI TOLD ME BREXIT WON’T AFFECT MY HOUSE PRICE”.

But here we all are. That was the Brexit that was. And what was it? It had the mad energy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream but went on for three and a half years. The sheer litany of WTF-ery that occurred would take precisely three and a half years to recount. At one point Michael Howard threatened war with Spain. It was the golden age of television drama, but people instead found themselves watching BBC Parliament in the evenings, initially capable of making wan comparisons with Game of Thrones but eventually lacking the energy to do anything but wish a dragonfire apocalypse on everyone involved.

It certainly unearthed some of the worst people in the country. On both sides, let’s be honest. By the time we were a few months in, most of the haute remainers could make you turn hard Brexit whenever they appeared on the news. Just as Donald Trump would be richer if he’d simply invested his inheritance in a tracker fund and done nothing, it feels likely that the leading forces of remain would have been in better shape three years into the horror show if they’d taken a vow of silence on 24 June 2016 and stopped trying to “help”.

For my money the Brexiteers were even worse, but others will argue we’re comparing Aids with syphilis. The second I saw Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins (remain) park for one Brexit high court challenge by mounting his personalised-plated Bentley on the pavement, I immediately channelled arms and strategic intelligence to pro-Brexit contras.

To each remainer their Brexit analogue. Charlie’s was Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin, a man who looks like a cautionary tale about his own pubs. Or take Brexiteer James Dyson (actually, I think Singapore already has). Dyson, as we never stopped hearing, is an inventor – a term that apparently allows him to walk through the same door as the creators of the steam engine and radio. Naturally, I yield to no one in my admiration for minor hand-dryer improvements. But Dyson basically does things that blow or suck, doesn’t he? Maybe that’s why he was drawn to Brexit.

Needless to say, the absolute worst people of all were the politicians, from the sensationally limited Theresa May to supply cult-leader Jeremy Corbyn, via committed anti-elitist Jacob Rees-Mogg, reservist idiot Mark Francois, and so on via a gazillion Tory wingnuts to the ghastly John Bercow – accused of multiple instances of bullying – whose lionised impunity served as a useful “how radicalised are you?” test for remainers.

The ultimate victor, pyrrhic or not, was Boris Johnson. On the day of withdrawal, then, I guess the key philosophical question is: how can something whose own internal logic made Boris Johnson prime minister be wrong?

From his days as the Telegraph’s Brussels fabulist, Brexit has been an end-to-end service by Johnson, who you’d think ought to look happier about it. But as tonight’s broadcast will unwittingly show, emotion is his phantom limb – which he feels the twitch of occasionally but primarily experiences as a sort of yawning absence assuageable only by the usual temporary fixes.

He does not appear to be a man who enjoys a short leash, which is perhaps why he has set the clock on himself for the trade negotiations, to introduce some of the jeopardy he has historically sought out in other pursuits. But no longer. Boris Johnson must now play the Henry V to his own Falstaff, which is his tragedy. We all have to watch, which is ours.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist