In 2016, with the EU referendum result just days old, Theresa May launched her campaign to be Conservative Party leader, famously pledging that “Brexit means Brexit”.
Almost a decade on, the slogan she coined is more popular than ever. Not in Westminster or in Brussels but on football pitches and playgrounds across the country.
The phrase is now being used by children, some as young as six, to describe a particularly tough — if rather cynical — sliding tackle.
“My 11-year-old son uses it all the time,” said Ian Norman, who manages Sole Bay United, a mixed junior football team in east Suffolk.
“I think it was being used by YouTubers creating football-based content and caught on among the kids. From what I can see, to ‘Brexit’ someone is to go in with a no-nonsense, committed, full-blooded tackle with little to no regard for the consequences. You might win the ball, you might not but the player on the end of it is going to know all about it.”
In popular usage, a “
Brexit means Brexit” tackle is the act in its purest form but like much of the English language it is adaptable. It can be shortened to a “Brexit” challenge, a slightly less forceful challenge can be “Brexitee” and it can be used as a verb to say that someone was “Brexited”.
The culprit of such a challenge will hold the badge of honour of being a “Brexiteer”.
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when I first heard it
