RU-RI-TANNIA!

 

 

(After James Thomson’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’)

 

 

Now Britain first, at Farage’s command,

Choo-oo-oo-oose out from the a-a-a-zure mainland,

Choose, O choose ou-ou-ou-out from the a-zure flag

Twelve-star studded: tag Magna Carta, no more “Jam

Tomorrow” promises, but Marmalade today!

Angels in marble trilling “Britain’s Great Again”:

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

How can ya’ now complain?

Leavers ever, ever, ever shall re-main!}

 

The mainland, no-o-o-o-ot so blest as we

With a Commonwealth (© the Queen):

Trade opportunities’ bubble and squeak

In the wake of Empire’s trumpeted poultry –

Brussels sprouts bureaucrats all mashed up,

Tipped out of the frying-pan into the camp fire,

And babes out with the bathwater,

No more Europe roped round our turkey neck,

We’re taking our country back, Cor blimey, By ‘eck!

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

How can ya’ now complain?

We’ll make the good old British banger grea-eat again!}

 

While we get back our Liberty,

Our sausages and sovereignty,

Europe must in its turn, to ty-y-rants fall,

To a Bratwurst-supping Super-State

Of bureaucrats and social democrats –

A bunch of jumped-up Bonapartes,

Napoleons, Little Corporals, upstarts!

Well we may be a race of shopkeepers

But at least we’ll be selling British produce

And once all the Polish hops-pickers

Are packed off back to Poland,

And the Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians

Are uprooted from Poundland,

We’ll put the Regis back in Bognor Riga,

We’ll bid bon voyage to Johnny Foreigner,

To frogs’ legs, bagels and Belgian lager,

We’ll celebrate with cold pork pies and warm beer!

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

How can ya’ now complain?

We’ll make Great Britain Great all over again!}

 

We’ll not miss the customs of the mainland,

We’ll not miss their goulash of languages,

Newcomers from the Commonwealth will understand

Our lingo well enough to take down our orders,

We’re going back to Tory-blue passports

(Even though they were actually black in the past!),

We’re taking back control of our borders,

In part, by trying to plant one in France –

No we’ll certainly not miss the mainland once

We kick ourselves off from French shores,

Cast ourselves adrift –that is, liberate ourselves!

With any luck we’ll drift across the Atlantic

And latch ourselves onto America’s rump,

We’re packing our trunk with a trumpety-trump

Trump-trump-trump

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

What if we now complain?

Once the immigrants are gone who do we blame?}

 

Sticking Agincourt salutes up at Europe,

And no matter what the Continentals throw at us

We’ll rise above it, rise still more maje-e-estic,

More dre-e-e-e-eadful from each foreign stroke,

More dreadful, dreadful from each foreign stroke,

Bang go our employment and human rights,

But we’ll shout Hoorah! Hoorah! for each stroke

Of the licking cat o’ nine tails with which we

Thrash our national back rapturously –

Each poke of the Mote in the Beam-end serves

But to further ro-o-o-ot thy Tory oak…

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

Will UKIP up its game?

Once we’ve got our country back can we give it away?}

 

Here’s to pomp and ceremony in our tin-pot kingdom,

To unreconstructed monarchy,

Bunting and punting and pageantry

In this Land of Anthony Hope’s old story,

The Prisoner of Zenda: yes, ironically

Our country will more resemble Ruritania,

That small Germanic realm set in a permanent

Nineteenth century -Continental Uchornia;

Or the even more backward aspic-

Pickled Duchy of Grand Fenwick

In Leonard Wibberley’s The Mouse That Roared

(Although we’re more a Squeaking Lion

When it comes to any influence abroad) –

O back to old boys, yobs, snobs, noblesse oblige,

Sir Nigel, Boris Greenback, and Baron Rees Mogg,

John Bull, Blimp, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nogg,

Double barrel-land, and bally Baden-Powell,

Rivers of blood, Toby jugs, Patron Saint Enoch (Powell),

Let the wind rush through our ivory sails,

We’ll rule the waves again, well, at least as far as Wales!

 

{Ru-ri-tannia!

Our Pe-di-gree Re-gained:

(In no par-tic-u-lar order:) Pict-

Celt-Gael-Saxon-Norman-Dane…

 

Ru-ri-tannia!

U-ni-ted once a-gain

Under mongrel flags a-a-nd so many damn names…}

 

 

 

Alan Morrison
Illustration Rupert Loydell

 


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