Brexit Metaphor No 105.
Once upon a time, there was a walnut that fell from a walnut tree. It had a protective shell so the worms couldn't eat it while it was lying on the ground. Time passed and the walnut germinated, so a thin sapling grew out of it. But then a herd of goats came and ate the sapling. End of story.
Britain is this walnut. It fell to the ground in 1973 when the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC). This gave it access to a vast internal market so the walnut took root and germinated: in a few years the UK economy started recovering from the monicker "the sick man of Europe". Growth was maintained in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s and the shoot became a young sapling. A storm struck in 2007-2008 (the global financial crisis) but then a rainbow formed in the sky in 2012 (the London Olympics). So everything was starting to look great again until Brexiteers took power in 2016 and tramped on the walnut sapling. They didn't want a walnut to grow in their garden; they wanted to plant an English rose instead. A walnut tree, even though productive, was not welcomed as it cast a shadow, while an English rose would produce a fragrance that would waft halfway around the world.
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| Walnut (Source: Wikipedia) |
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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 105 have been posted so far and another 56 Brexit Metaphors will be published every day until the planned Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
2. Disclosure: The author has a master's degree in European Integration. He also thinks he knows a bit about business, economics, entrepreneurship, China, history, geography, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
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