If, Brexitstyle
(With sincere apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

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If you are blaming others and all about you
Are doing similar, and even worse than you,
If you must rush to doubt EU’s true,
And make no allowance for doubting too;
If you can shout and not be into hearing,
Or need to lie abroad, when facts don’t chime,
Or let your love give way to jeering,
And yet still look good, you commit no crime:

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If you think team – and make your team your master;
If you can gain – and not let others do the same;
If you can meet Remainer and Abstainer
And treat these two opponents with just one aim:
If you can’t bear to hear your truth not spoken,
And discounted as a falsehood claim,
Or watch your shores, your red boundaries broken,
And ban all others and call them utterly lame:

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If you can make one cheap and cheerful innings
And risk it all on one lying referendum,
And win and claim democratic beginnings
But ne’re do show a Brexit Impact addendum:
If you can play your part with every nerve and sinew
Strained, to prove that right, is really wrong,
And so hold on when there is nothing for you
Except the Bill which says to all: ‘I’m strong!’

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If you can cut your suit in deeper blue,
Or talk in rings – or lose the common ground
With old old foes so they desert you,
If you can’t count the value of your falling pound;
If you can fill the angry meeting minute
With sixty seconds worth of useless fun,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And –which is more – you’ll be a Brexiteer, my son!

©Keith Murphy