Politics

The first two items in the Museum of Brexit are a set of scales and a fishing net

The first two items in the Museum of Brexit are a set of scales and a fishing net
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In news that will relieve many, the Museum of Brexit has procured its first items.

The Evening Standardreports the museum - which seeks to commemorate Britain leaving the EU - has already got two great exhibits to tantalise its visitors - an imperial weights scale and a fishing net used on the first day the UK regained control over its territorial waters.

Seriously...

Picture this. It is a slow Sunday. Great British rain and wind lashes at your window. How will you spend the day? You turn to your friend/partner/family member and say: “Hey, how about we go to the Museum of Brexit?”

Excitedly you turn up to gaze in wonder at weighing scales and a fishing net and fight the tears that will surely prick your eyes in wonder at our great nation.

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Listen, we’ve told you about this farkakte museum before. Last month, it was granted charitable status and started to fundraise the £650,000 it needs to operate and it was thoroughly roasted by Remainers reacting to this news:

The organisers announced they were hoping to secure the pen used to sign the 1957 Treaty of Rome and a pro-European flag jumper once worn by Margaret Thatcher. While a fishing net and scales are not these items, we suppose it's a start.

On its website, it also calls for contributions from members of the public, and provides a list of “what to look for in your loft” which includes “items associated with an event, such as a folding desk and associated street stall display from a specific campaign visit.”

Look, Museum of Brexit, this is fast becoming a bric-a-brac sale, not a museum. Stay focussed, lads!

The museum will likely be located in the Midlands, a predominantly Leave-voting region and organisers have said it may take years to set up. The website also says the museum will “inform and educate people” and tell a “balanced” story about the Brexit referendum - though it is run entirely by Eurosceptics including Gawain Towler, a former director of communications for UKIP and the Brexit Party.

Alex Deane, a trustee of the museum who directed the Grassroots Out campaign in 2016 said: “There is a tremendous story behind this that deserves to be preserved. Unless we act fast, much of the material from the referendum will be lost. Gaps will then be filled with misperceptions, fake news and myth.

“Our objective is to plug that gap at the time when it is easiest – right now, while memories are fresh, attics are still filled with treasures and before items and stories get lost.”

You do you, Deane!

And hey, if you are reading this, Museum of Brexit, and need to hire more curators, we have a few ideas of our own about what you could exhibit.

You’re welcome.

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