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Brexit

This ‘Nude Brexit Doctor’ Debate Is Missing the Point

There are some good points to be made about Britain's impending withdrawal from the EU, but I’m not convinced that “tits out for liberalism, broadly speaking!” is one for now.
Emma Garland
London, GB
Richard Madeley and Dr. Victoria Bateman on GMB
Screenshot via Good Morning Britain

In my experience, nudity is not a constructive addition to sensible discourse. I once had an argument with a Tinder date at a naked cabaret night in Bethnal Green and I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that the fact we were both topless did not help us reconcile our emotional differences. It did make storming off more difficult, though. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to exit a heated debate with your chebs out, but there really is no graceful way to pull on several layers of clothing while pushing through a crowd of people dancing to Nirvana in a way that says “I’ve just made a series of good and valid points.”

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If nudity can’t help two lovely women searching for intimacy resolve their differences in a safe space, what good could it possibly do in the cut-throat and pig-headed arena of domestic politics? This is my question to Cambridge academic, Dr. Victoria Bateman, who has been all over the news lately for campaigning against Brexit with the slogan “Brexit leaves Britain naked” written in sharpie across her boobs and stomach, like the Kathleen Hanna of foreign policy. The metaphor, in case you didn’t track, is that: she’s naked. Like Britain will be when we leave the European Union on the 29th of March 2019.

Bateman’s original one-off performance at the Cambridge Junction theatre back in January explores, in her own words: “how Brexit leaves the British economy exposed, how it has uncovered and fuelled dangerous anti-immigration sentiments, and how it has laid bare the failures of past policy – failures that mean that too many people believe they have nothing to lose from Brexit simply because they have nothing at all.”

All absolutely valid points – though of course, we never use language around countries being ‘naked,’ so her phrasing is already reeeaching for the tenuous link to nudity – which are absolutely not being discussed properly because all anyone cares about, obviously, is the fact that she’s not got any clothes on. After posting the performance to Twitter, reactions came in one of two forms: statements about what a stupid cow she is accompanied by a gif of someone trimming a bush, or 17 clapping emojis from Amanda Palmer. Because it is a cursed platform, the division of opinion fuelled more engagement, which made it into a whole thing, and now the popularity of the video – which has been viewed more than 1.36 million times on Twitter alone – has led to a series of appearances in the British media. Hence why Richard Madeley was seen fumbling, Alan Partridge-like, through a description of Bateman’s pixelated body for the benefit of Good Morning Britain viewers on Tuesday morning, while sat beneath a giant Brexit countdown clock.

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Victoria Bateman Good Morning Britain

Screenshot from Good Morning Britain

While on-air, Bateman repeated her challenge to a live televised debate with Jacob Rees-Mogg, who, fortunately, she says “can keep his clothes on” during. Unfortunately, this interview goes on for ten minutes and the majority of it is spent trying to get to the bottom of her rationale – questions that are actually less concerned with the fact of her nudity and more concerned with whether her argument actually warrants the distraction from the political decisions that are being made as we speak.

I stan anyone’s right to get their bits out. In Parliament, in a park, in Bethnal Green on a Tinder date, wherever. They’re just bodies, innit. Just bits. Women’s bodies in particular can and have been used as a powerful tool for political resistance, but sometimes – like now, for instance – it can serve as a distraction. As much as people like to theorise about the breakdown of British democracy, it’s not exactly North Korea or the Middle East. We don’t have a media blackout, boobs are fine. Anyone likely to side with Bateman on Brexit will already be in agreement because the information she’s giving is already widely available, and if you’re protesting in a climate where you can get booked to sit on a Good Morning Britain panel stark bollock nude and discuss your views, then the right to protest naked probably isn’t something that needs defending in the first place.

In the segment, Open Europe director, Henry Newman, said: “It seems to me that [Brexit is] not something we’re not discussing. We’ve been discussing very little else for the past two and a half years other than this basic question of: shall we leave the European Union or not, and ultimately I haven’t heard a single new argument today.” He then fucked it by calling her actions “embarrassing”, which was a faux pas not least because it provided another window for Bateman to reiterate that she is “comfortable and confident in her own skin”. He was onto something at first, though.

Usually, the public and the media can be blamed for shifting the focus away from what a woman has to say and onto her appearance, but in this case it really does feel like the political point Bateman is most interested in defending is a woman’s right to be naked. Her timeline is equal parts anti-Brexit sentiments and My Body, My Choice defences, with a slant towards the latter, as attention is paid to the shitposters of Twitter who will never not take it upon themselves to hurl abuse at any woman for as much as mentioning what they had for lunch.

Now, rather than talking about the state of our stupid country and its failing elected representatives, we’re having a side-debate about women’s autonomy, which, while relevant in general, has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. At the end of the day, the points Bateman is making are the same points that have been made over and over again, she’s just making them without clothes on. She says that herself within the first minute of her interview of Good Morning Britain, acknowledging that as an economist she has penned "thousands of words" on how Brexit would be bad for Britain, but that when it comes to considering issues there is an argument to be made for people being "affected by much more than words alone". Which is a fair point, but considering the amount of expert evidence that's been presented to both the government and the public suggesting Brexit would be bad for the British economy – even before the referendum – and how little it has made a difference, I'm not sure it's up for discussion anymore. At this point "Brexit will be bad for the British economy" is as much a part of the zeitgeist as "We are the 1%" or "Bush did 9/11".

While I’m thankful I’ve never had to witness a nude Boris Johnson talking about the backstop or Theresa May waltzing into the House of Commons with “Brexit Means Brexit” scrawled across her arse, I don’t think anyone would care if they did at this point. There are some good points to be made about the UK’s impending withdrawal from the EU, but I’m not convinced that “tits out for liberalism, broadly speaking!” is one for now. The last thing we need is a national argument about naked protest while we’re sleepwalking – nude or not – into one of the biggest economic disasters of our time.

@emmaggarland