Somewhat shamefully, I continue to gawk at the train-wreck of #Brexit. One thing I have been struck by, in the latest spasm of people people shocked at what they voted for, is that this discussion of “lies” obscures the more important role of a Whorfian linguistic determinism. 1/

English voters were encouraged (even by #Remainer critics) to frame #Brexit as a “divorce” — equivalent “partners” “splitting up”. In negotiations involving such huge disparities ( #EU’s economy is > 8x larger and globally far more important), this trope was at best, deceiving. 2/

A masculinist “tinging” of #UK in this “divorce” (its trading virility gelded by soft #EU bureaucracy and its thrusting desire to spread its seed globally reigned in by Brussels’ timidity) added a comic air to it all, encouraging Britain to bring postures to a contract talk. 3/

Now that a #BrexitDeal is in force, besides reality being on the side of #Brexit’s critics, as folks protest the downside, a further trope, a kind of homologous metaphor (apologies to my linguistic anthropology colleagues), is emerging from #UK becoming a “Third country”. 4/

It’s clear that this is heard by #Brexiter fishermen (at least) NOT as “Third Party” to privileges and obligations that #EU members contractually share, but as a “Third WORLD country”, an insult a jilted and vengeful #Brussels is hurling at the virile lover who spurned her. 5/

It would funny, if fishing/farming weren’t merely the first sectors being fundamentally remade (and diminished) in the wake of #Brexit. When masculinist metaphors frame nationalism, purifying violence is never far away. The “deal” is only the end of the beginning of “Brexit”. 6/6