From ‘Brexit’ to ‘Brexshit’: the internet has its say on the word that changed Britain

Few political words have become as instantly recognisable, or as politically loaded, as Brexit. It became shorthand for Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, dominated headlines for years and ultimately entered the political vocabulary of the world.

But where did the word actually come from?

According to Peter Wilding, chairman of British Influence, he coined it in 2012. And, somewhat ironically, the man who helped give Brexit its name was not campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union at all. Quite the opposite.

Wilding was chairman of British Influence, an independent, cross-party, pro-single-market foreign-affairs think tank founded in 2012 to make the case for Britain’s continued engagement with Europe at a time when calls for withdrawal from the EU were growing louder.

In a recent interview with Sky News, Wilding described himself as “neither a ‘phile’ nor a ‘phobe’, just a realist campaigning for British Influence in Europe.”

His original intention, he says, was to argue that Britain needed to regain influence in Europe rather than retreat from it.

After leaving his role as Europe director at BSkyB, Wilding says he devoted himself to campaigning for Britain to “take back control” of Europe through his think tank, British Influence. In 2012, he published an article in which he warned:

“Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the single market then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit might be followed by another sad word, Brexit.”

The word was, at that point, little more than a linguistic invention, a combination of Britain and exit, following the already familiar Grexit.

Unlike Brexit, however, Grexit never actually happened. The term emerged during the Greek debt crisis, between 2010 and 2015, when there was intense debate over whether Greece might be forced to leave the eurozone. Greece ultimately reached agreements with its international creditors, accepted strict austerity measures and remained in both the eurozone and the European Union.

But the word Brexit didn’t just catch on but came to signify the turmoil that followed the 2016 referendum.

Wilding has recalled that shortly after the EU referendum, the Oxford English Dictionary contacted him to tell him that Brexit was his word and had subsequently been named its 2016 Word of the Year.

Having coined the word, Wilding now argues that the political project that came to bear its name was profoundly mishandled.

“But having invented the word, I can now reveal the hopeless mistakes by arrogant people made on the way which have led us to this place. My own personal J’accuse is heartfelt. Because Brexit was a chronicle of a death foretold. The fault, not of the lions who are the British people, but of the donkeys who led them,” he told Sky.

Wilding also argues that there remains a route back from the political consequences of Brexit.

“But the darkest hour is always before dawn. If the Brexit revolution can be stopped before it devours the country itself – before Scotland and Northern Ireland tire of this English public schoolboy caper – then maybe leaders will emerge so that Britain can lead again in Europe and the world to defend our threatened principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”

Yet the internet, as ever, didn’t miss an opportunity to take the mickey.

“The expression ‘Grexit’ came first, so this was hardly rocket science,” one commenter mocked.

“That’s okay, I invented Brexshit,” someone added.

And another wrote:

“Makes it easier to give a name to what we do next though — Brejoin.”

Whether Brejoin ever becomes anything more serious, remains to be seen.

But Brexit, a word coined in 2012 as a warning about where Britain might be heading, eventually became the defining label for one of the most consequential political decisions in modern British history.

Wilding may have invented the word.

He certainly didn’t invent everything that happened afterwards.