Brexit is coming: Game of Thrones at Westminsteros

Nick Curtis imagines the pilot episode for the new series of a fantasy drama about a struggle for the parliamentary throne 
A song of fire and ice: the Kingdom of Westminsteros
By Nick Curtis18 July 2017

The scene: The Palace of Westminsteros at King’s Landing. Queen Cersei Lannister (Theresa May) enters, accompanied by Qyburn (Philip Hammond), the Hand of the Queen, who she does not trust. They cross to the Iron Throne.

Cersei/May: “Stand beside me, Qyburn/Philip, where I can see you.” (She surveys the assembled crowd of friends and foes and sits. A long, drawn-out raspberry is heard. Cersei/May grimaces and pulls out a whoopee cushion from beneath her. There are titters from the crowd, and Tyrion Lannister [David Davis] looks innocently at the ceiling). Cersei/May forces a smile. “Ha ha, very amusing. I know many of you thought I was ‘a dead woman’ after I had to do my walk of shame following the ‘Red Coronation’ — when I was stripped of all my manifesto pledges and forced to parade through the streets without any policies to cover my embarrassment. I was even mocked by the town crier Jon Snow, who was heard chanting ‘F*** the Lannisters’ with some revellers at the Festival of Delirium.”

Qyburn/Hammond: “He knows nothing, Jon Snow.”

Cersei/May: “Well, I have shed my tears over that and I tell you now, I plan to sit on the Iron Throne for at least a year or two. There is a job to be done and I am getting on with the job. Brexit, I mean winter, is coming. The 27 nations of white walkers are preparing to hold us to a dear account. I would ask all the Houses here to put aside their differences — and yes, I have even approached Crimson Jez and his wildling savages — to deliver the best winter for the people of Westminsteros…

Qyburn/Hammond: (Breaking in) “We want a ‘business winter’, a winter which gives us control over our borders but where the white walkers can still come here, study, build our kitchens and pick fruit. Ideally, we want a soft winter, where we can hold onto things like sunshine and flowers and long evenings. That’s the kind of winter I hope to deliver in four years. (Angry murmurs from the crowd) I mean three years! (More angry murmurs) Two!!”

Theresa May
PA

Ramsay Bolton (Liam Fox): (Pulls sword and brandishes it) “We want a hard winter and we want it now! We should cut off all contact with the white walkers — legal, financial, commercial, social — with sharp Valyrian steel immediately. Only then can I can start negotiating trade deals with Narnia, Middle Earth and Atlantis… (an aid, Adam of Wherrity, whispers in his ear) … which, er, I have just been informed is underwater. Which means we will be free to negotiate with Never-Never Land! So give us winter and give it to us now, good and hard, or by god, we’ll put someone on the Iron Throne who can!”

Daenerys Targaryen (Andrea Leadsom): (Butting in) “Speaking as a mother of dragons, unlike Cersei, which means I have a very real stake in the future, I do feel that Queen Cersei seems rather slow to enact the will of my followers, the Unsullied-by-common-sense. To suggest that we need to allow free movement of white walkers or remain in the trade guild that oversees the distribution of dragonglass is just downright unpatriotic and yet another example of people talking King’s Landing down. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, quite a bit behind Brobdingnag but just ahead of Lilliput. And we were the first kingdom to have a woman sit on the Iron Throne, the blessed Margaret of Milksnatch. Now we have a second Queen, who I fully support, but should the time come for a third…” (There is a fearful hammering at the window: it is the wild dragon Farage, belching smoke and fumes and demanding to be let into the chamber after an extended lunch at the Bawdy Badger tavern)

Petyr Baelish (Chris Grayling): “I heard that Maester Qyburn said, in a private meeting, that the Watch, who staff the wall and keep us safe from white walkers who want to eat our swans and Wildlings who want to sequester our property, were ‘overpaid’…”

Qyburn/Hammond: “What I actually said, if you translate correctly from the German, is that when you divide the cake of the national finances, the slice enjoyed by the Watch is proportionately bigger than that served to the great Houses of Westminsteros, once pension entitlements are factored in…”

Baelish/Grayling: “…and he said that the job of King’s Guard is so easy that even a weak and feeble woman like Brienne of Tarth could do it.”

Cersei/May: “Where are these leaks coming from!?!” (There is muttering and gesticulating, but slowly the crowd parts and everyone points at Theon Greyjoy/Michael Gove, who is left alone in the centre – of the hall, that is).

Greyjoy/Gove: “Me!?! Oh no, it wasn’t me. I’m not the man I was, in terms of politicking, since my, you know, ambitions were cut off. Besides, I am absolutely not one to rock the boat. I’m all about the three Ls now — loyalty, loyalty and becoming leader, I mean, loyalty.”

Cersei/May: “Enough! (Turns to Tyrion Lannister/David Davis). Now, Tyrion/David, we appointed you as our chief negotiator with the white walkers. How did your first encounter with their leader King Michel of Barnier go?”

Tyrion/Davis: “Er, well, he was a bit better prepared than I was. He had all these figures and notes and things whereas when I unrolled my scroll of demands I realised it was actually a menu from the Bawdy Badger that I must have put in my saddlebag by mistake eight months ago. At one point he got quite aggressive and pulled his sword on me. I went to draw mine, but it turned out there was a saveloy in my scabbard instead. Don’t know where that came from. So I just gave him a big grin and said we were taking his concerns on board but that there were some points on which we were absolutely inflexible and I would let him know what those were in the fullness of time. So I think we can say we’ve got Johnny Foreigner — or rather, Johnny Walker — on the back foot, and I am confident I will complete these negotiations to our advantage, at some point, somewhere in the future, and then take over the Iron Throne because I am the only man who can deliver the winter that the people want. Oh, did I say that last bit out loud?”

The Hound/Boris Johnson: (Aside) “Hmm, time for an intervention by yours truly. Been keeping a low profile and letting the other chaps fight it out, in the hope of a clear run at the Iron Throne. But good to serve up a soundbite now and again to please the Unsullied-by-common-sense. Here goes. (Aloud) Might I suggest that when old barmy Barnier — that blue-eyed, blustering mugwump of the undead — suggested that we pay him 40,000 golden dragons as our so-called ‘winter divorce settlement’ my honourable friend should have told him to go and whistle for it?”

Key Brexit Players - In pictures

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Tyrion/Davis: “Funnily enough, I was teaching your sister Lady Rachel how to whistle at the annual summer party held by the High Spectator of the Sparrows. We’d had a few glasses of mead and I was persuading her to throw her lot in with House Lannister after her ill-judged allegiance to House Libdem, before their numbers were decimated at the Red Coronation and their leader, Farron the Bornagain, threw himself out of a window…”

Hound/Boris: “Watch it, you grey-haired heap of Dothraki droppings, or I’ll kick you in the bollocks.”

Tyrion/Davis: “Oh yeah, well I’ll kick you in the boll*cks!”

Hound/Boris: “You’d need a stepladder to even headbutt them, titch.” They are about to come to blows when Ramsay Bolton/Liam Fox jumps in, flailing his sword to part them.

Bolton/Fox: “Gentlemen, please! We need unity here and wise counsel, and I will personally HEADBUTT anyone who disagrees. Now, let us all pull together, all of us… against the TRAITOR who is trying to f*** up winter and DOOM us all to an ETERNAL SPRING. The Queen doesn’t know what her Hand is doing — I accuse Qyburn!”

He lunges at Qyburn/Hammond who shouts “Christ, it’s like being kidnapped by pirates” and draws his sword. All the other factions start stabbing each other in the back, and the dragon Farage bursts through the door and demands a knighthood and to be made Ambassador to President Tangerine of the Far Colonies. Arya Stark (Amber Rudd) sneaks quietly in and sits on the Iron Throne while Cersei/May is squirrelled away into a secret passage by her Master of Whisperers, Damian Green.

Cersei/May: “Sometimes I wish I was in Doctor Who instead.”

Master of Whisperers/Green: “Because you could regenerate as somebody else?”

Cersei/May: “No, because I’d go back in my Tardis and stop myself ever sitting on that bloody throne…”

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