Did you ever see a cat stuck up a tree? It desperately wants to get down, but when a kindly human climbs up to rescue it, it hisses and claws. Even cats can’t bear to lose face. Brexit is like this: England needs to climb down, but it can’t bear to lose face. The only solution is to offer England enough ways to declare victory. In return for forgetting about Brexit, the European Union and member states will offer the following concessions.
1 Germany will agree that the penalty shoot-outs from the 1990 World Cup semi-finals and 1996 European Championship semi-finals will be restaged at Wembley. Chris Waddle, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate will be allowed to take their penalties as many times as is necessary for them to score, ending decades of hurt. There will be mass chanting of "two World Wars and two World Cups".
2 Queen Elizabeth II will be permitted to add queen of France to her titles for the remainder of her reign, in keeping with the claims of her predecessors. The title will have no extraterritorial significance, but the fleur-de-lis will be returned to the royal standard and will fly over all royal palaces.
A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will remain in residence for six months each year
3 The European Union will recognise British sovereignty over the northeast Atlantic islet of Rockall. Denmark, Iceland and Ireland will withdraw their rival claims and issue a joint statement recognising the inalienable Britishness of the rock. A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall from a helicopter, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will be granted the title of sovereign lord of Rockall and will remain in residence for six months each year.
4 Beethoven's Ode to Joy will be replaced as the official EU anthem with On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.
5 France will agree to import 1,000 tonnes of cheddar each year until 2023. The Cordon Bleu institute of gastronomy in Paris will endorse an advertising campaign under the slogan "Roquefort merde, Cheddar mmmm!"
6 Spain will agree to reissue all school atlases with Las Malvinas given their proper name, the Falkland Islands.
7 Spain will formally cede the Pie n Pint pub and Churchill's sports bar, in Santa Ponsa, and the EastEnders pub and Arfur's cabaret bar, in Magaluf, to her majesty's government, recognising them in perpetuity as British overseas possessions.
8 Marmite will be granted protected-designation-of-origin status by the European Union.
9 In recognition of distinctive English traditions and justified irritation at bloody Brussels interference, EU labour laws will contain a special derogation to allow for the employment in England of soot-faced child chimney sweeps singing "Chim chiminey / Chim chiminey / Chim chim cher-ee!"
10 Jellied eels will be served at all formal EU dinners.
A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century
11 Ireland will agree that Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, WB Yeats and James Joyce are Great British writers. (The status of Samuel Beckett will be referred to a special United Nations commission.)
12 Saoirse Ronan, Rory McIlroy, Graham Norton and Bono will agree that they are British when they win an Oscar / win the Masters / tell a good joke / make a good album but remain Irish when they make a dud movie / hit a round of 82 / tell a terrible joke / make a show of themselves. The Irish people will enter a solemn covenant not to whinge about this ever again.
13 Brussels sprouts will be renamed Little England cabbages.
14 English grocers will not be banned from selling only bendy bananas. English women will not have to turn in their old vibrators for recycling before buying new ones. English lorry drivers will not be forced to give up rashers and eggs for muesli and croissants. (None of these things ever happened, but, largely thanks to Boris Johnson, people believe they did, so the "concessions" will feel like a victory.)
15 The people of Paris will agree to stop being rude and pretending they don't speak English, especially when it is helpfully spoken at them slowly and very loudly.
These proposals have two great advantages. First, they are much more practical and achievable than the actual have-our-cake-and-eat-it demands of the British government in the Brexit negotiations. They involve some pain for the countries making the concessions, but they do not threaten vital national interests. Second, they are designed to send the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sun into paroxysms of patriotic ecstasy. A noisy orgy of triumphalism will fully cover the retreat from Brexit. A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century.
Above all, honour will be satisfied, face will be saved. The cat will be able to come down from the tree with a smile on its face and its tail in the air, knowing that it is its rescuer who has been humiliated. In years to come Brexit will be but dimly remembered and people will say what the grandfather says of the Battle of Blenheim in Robert Southey’s poem: “But what good came of it at last?” / Quoth little Peterkin. / “Why that I cannot tell,” said he, / “But ’twas a famous victory.”