From Brexit to MAGA: The real-life B-Movie Sequel No One Asked For...
Just when the plot couldn’t get any dumber, they added more insane twists and ridiculous characters. Real life has now outpaced bad TV fiction in absurdity — without an end credit in sight.
Somewhere on my first travels to the United States during Obama’s inaugural election campaign, I must have slipped into a parallel Batman universe - a weird combination of the original campy and bumbling Adam West version which aired on TV in the Sixties ("Quick, Robin - to the Batmobile!”) and the later gritty, brooding films of Christopher Nolan, featuring the darkly iconic Joker of Heath Ledger pitted against the sexy-hoarse Dark Knight of Christian Bale.
In particular, politics now seems heightened as if a Hollywood studio had thrown the script back to the writer saying, “We need more drama, more extremes, more crazy and don’t worry about any of it making sense - the audience just wants the non-stop rush of adrenaline of imminent disaster!”
On June 23, 2016, I woke up to find that Britain voted to leave the European Union. Not crazy you may say, but what followed was surely just that. After David Cameron resigned from having stupidly called the referendum in the first place to quieten the Euro-sceptics in his Conservative party, we had Boris Johnson - a clown-haired whirlwind of Latin quotes and half-finished policies — who blustered the UK out of the EU like a man confidently rowing a boat he hadn't quite finished building. Somehow both Churchillian and cartoonish, he made chaos look oddly deliberate while lying to Northern Ireland’s Unionists to get them to agree to his Brexit agreement with the EU. They evoke little sympathy, considering they voted for Brexit believing it would secure Northern Ireland’s future within the UK (while probably crossing their fingers for a hard border again on the island of Ireland). How did that work out, DUP?
Then we had Liz Truss who swept into Number 10 like a libertarian scarecrow with a calculator and blew out 45 days later (her premiership unable to compete in longevity stakes with a head of lettuce), destroying British markets with her economic plan that even extreme neoliberals found nuts. Her genius appears in the fact that she is completely oblivious to how inept and stupid she actually is.
Finally, Rishi Sunak stepped in like the substitute teacher in a tough inner-city school - calm, tidy, and hoping no one looks at him too closely (or at his wife's tax status). He's the first Prime Minister to look like he was generated by LinkedIn and despite his (best?) efforts, he saw the Tory party implode at the last election.
Now the UK has a safe pair of hands in Labour’s Keir Starmer - a man so cautious he makes beige look radical. Starmer has spent years surgically removing any trace of drama from Labour, like a lawyer redacting last year’s Christmas cards. He's the political equivalent of me leaving the teabag in an offered cup of tea in case of offending anyone.
Later in 2016, in a twist truly worthy of a bad ‘B movie’, I again woke up (need to stop doing that) on November 9th to find out that Donald Trump had been elected as US President, defeating Hillary Clinton, probably the worst candidate the Democrats could have put forward after Bernie Sanders’ campaign suffered death-by-a-thousand-cuts by the seasoned geniuses in the Democratic Party.
Trump is the media star who turned the White House into a reality TV show season finale. He ran on a platform of 'Make America Great Again' and delivered a performance that was part political drama, part circus - only with more nuclear codes and truly awful guest stars. His live-tweeted presidency was like watching someone juggle chainsaws while slurring how much of a stable genius they were - you couldn't look away and weren't sure whether to laugh or panic, especially as we all were essentially in the same room as the chainsaws.
The late-night chatshow hosts had their fodder for entertainment, but at least it would be over in four years – how much damage could Donald Trump do? Lots… apparently. Because then came the Covid pandemic in early 2020 - the global crisis that turned every living room into an office, gym and daycare, all while we tried to pretend Zoom calls weren’t slowly eroding our will to live. It was a time when ‘social distancing’ became a thing and masks were somehow both a safety statement and the hated object of conspiracy theorists. If the virus didn’t kill us (which it did), it certainly redefined how we think about personal space, hygiene and how much we actually liked our family.
During the pandemic, Trump made several jaw-dropping moves: suggesting injecting disinfectant to cure Covid, repeatedly downplayed its severity and pushed unproven treatments like hydroxychloroquine (or horse tranquiliser). He also mocked mask-wearing, undermined experts like Dr Anthony Fauci while his delayed response, mixed messaging and lack of a cohesive national strategy made Covid worse and would see the United States have near 1.2 million fatalities.
But by early 2021 we had seen the end of Trump, albeit after the January 6th insurrection where a bunch of mostly older and odder MAGA characters stormed the very lightly defended US Capitol buildings after Trump had decided the election was rigged - because he lost. 'Sleepy Joe' Biden promised to restore normalcy as US President and despite notable economic wins often looked like he was sleepwalking through it. Balancing crises with the energy of someone always on the cusp of powering down while staring through you, he managed to navigate his presidency like the calm uncle at Christmas - well-meaning, but often out of sync with the chaos and Republican malignancy around him. Yet the economy improved, unemployment fell and the United States' standing in the world rose again.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, the self-styled strongman, in a move straight out of a bad spy novel decided to take over Ukraine and create a geopolitical disaster after stupidly believing in the strength of his own corrupt administration and army. While flexing his muscles and riding horses shirtless, his invasion turned him from a modern Bismarck into the badly-acted Russian villain of every James Bond movie who claims victory and leaves before the conclusion of his genius plan... which then immediately fails.
This is all aside from the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the killing of unbelievable numbers of innocent Palestinian civilians following the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th, 2023. Israel's onslaught on Gaza is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the sociopathic political veteran who mastered the art of clinging to power while dodging corruption charges in a masterclass about how long you can outlast judicial investigations.
Speaking of outlasting judicial investigations, the unbelievable didn’t happen and Donald Trump predictably came back as US President. This time, he didn’t run his playbook of contesting ‘false’ election results because he won the popular vote against Taylor Swift. Now, the oligarchs and business people who elected him are shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that Trump has again cratered the stock market and will likely push the world economy into chaos if he keeps to his beautiful ‘liberation day’ tariffs - as he promised to do during his campaign. And this season’s B movie has barely started.
Actually, maybe we do need Adam West as a real Batman: “Holy shit, Batman, let’s lower the tariffs."
Why not? This is the world we now live in…
Originally published in the Western People, 29 April 2025.