A backbench MP has stirred controversy with the suggestion that anti-vaxxers, Covid-19 deniers and associated conspiracy theorists should be rounded up and exiled on a remote island. “I don’t know about the general public, but I am getting increasingly frustrated with all the Covdiots, naysayers, contrarians and just plain irresponsible twats that the coronavirus pandemic has flushed out from under their rocks,” declares Labour’s Nathan Brickabrack. “Frankly, I’ve reached the stage of just wishing that all these cranks and morons would piss off to their own island somewhere – they could all not wear masks, not take vaccines or observe social distancing to their hearts’ content, without endangering anyone else. If we’re really lucky, they’ll all infect each other and die. It would be natural selection.” Perhaps not surprisingly, Brickabrack has found himself branded an ‘extremist’ for his suggestion and accused of advocating violence and attempting to suppress ‘free speech’. “As usual, we have the same old chorus of hand-wringing conservatives admonishing me for advocating violence and trying to silence dissenting voices.,” says an exasperated Brickabrack. “These are the self same idiots who spend their time accusing people on the left of being over-sensitive snowflakes and blocking any attempts to regulate the lies printed by the tight-wing press. Bloody hypocrites.”
Brickabrack has also found himself being accused of ‘intellectual snobbery’ and ‘elitism’ for his violent dismissal of ‘alternative viewpoints’ on the pandemic. “He is typical of the metropolitan elites who are trying to control us through this fake pandemic,” opines Derek Bauble, a leading anti-mask protestor. “Everybody knows that Covid-19 – if it really exists – is no worse than the flu and that the only people who die from it are already at death’s door: doddering old gits and the chronically sick.” According Bauble, there has so far been no evidence, scientific, medical or otherwise, which will convince him and followers otherwise. “Those scientists who keep promoying this coronavirus nonsense, well, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” says Bauble. “After all, they are all government scientists, aren’t they? Part of the elite. Even the ones that aren’t, they’re still reliant on government grants for their research, so they just go along with it.”
Bauble asserts that he definitely won’t be wearing a mask when they become mandatory in UK shops. “Imposing masks is a diabolical liberty, clearly an infringement of some rights or other,” he says. “In fact, this whole pandemic has been a sham, an excuse for the government to exert more control over people’s lives. Well, these guys aren’t sheep like everyone else, they aren’t going to go along with the conspiracy, they aren’t going to be inoculated with any of these so-called vaccines being developed by Bill Gates – you’ll just end up with mind-controlling microchips in your blood stream. I mean, it is just common sense isn’t it?” Brickabrack’s response is typically curt. “Oh for God’s sake, these aren’t legitimate ‘alternative viewpoints’ these cranks are peddling. Honestly, the litany of ignorance I see in the comments following just about any online article about the pandemic are depressing,” retorts the MP. “These are people seemingly incapable of grasping the most basic of facts, unable to accept evidence which conflicts with their own narrow view. They seem determined to perpetuate the virus with their refusal to contemplate taking vaccines or wearing masks. Really, we need to treat them as if they were infected – which they are, by ignorance – and isolate them.”
Adam Trinket, Senior Lecturer in Crackpot Studies at the University of West Bracknell agrees with Brickabrack, expressing fears that the UK is regressing into a new dark age of ignorance. “Increasingly, it feels as if everything is running backwards, as science and reason are rejected in favour of ignorance and bigotry.,” he muses. “To be frank, it is like watching the march of the morons, as these increasingly idiotic conspiracy theories proliferate. It seems that people no longer want to accept the evidence of their own eyes – people are dying from Covid by their thousands, yet they still try to deny that the virus even exists!” Trinket finds the rise in ignorance difficult to explain, but suspects that it might have something to do with the rise of social media. “I think the problem these days is that anyone, no matter how deluded or ignorant, can promulgate their crackpottery to a potentially global audience,” he speculates. “Their lunacy, once out there, attracts other idiots, like moths flocking to a light bulb.” Trinket believes that there is now only one pertinent question which needs answering: “So, how do we lure these cretins to that island?”
In fact, the academic has suggested that perhaps isolation on an island isn’t the best solution for dealing with the Covidiots. “Actually, even better than an island, would be some kind of sealed environment, a ship perhaps?” he says. “That way we could reduce the possibility of them escaping or being rescued, as they’d constantly be on the move.” But the question remains, how to lure them onto the ship? “We could tell them that is a sort of ‘Ark’, designed to preserve the cream of humanity and that they’ve all been selected. Because if there is one thing one can be sure of about these people, it is their sense of self-importance, that they are clearly superior because they can see through all the mundane ‘nonsense’ peddled by those scientists and other intellectuals,” muses Trinket. “So, there would be no problem in luring them aboard our hypothetical ship – the more ignorant these people are, the smarter they think they are. Once on board, we can just keep them sailing around until they all die. If worst comes to worst, we can always scuttle it and send them into the ocean depths. Either that, or send a Royal navy submarine to torpedo the ship.” With the cruise industry so badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the current surplus of redundant cruise liners could be used to set up multiple Covidiot cruises, Trinket suggests. “Look, rather than seeing it as mass murder, just see as a quick way to improve the gene pool,” he says in response to accusations that he is advocating mass murder. “It’s just more efficient than using the benefits system to cull the numbers of the poor, the way the government does.”
