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What the Colon Knew: A Retrospective on the Brexit Readings
It is now some years since the 2016 referendum, and the haruspicy community has had sufficient time to review its pre- and post-vote readings with the benefit of hindsight. Brexit Through the Colon — as this body of work has come to be informally known among practitioners — represents one of the more substantial case studies in colonic political divination that British haruspicy has produced in living memory. Whether your readings aligned with the eventual result or not, there is genuine value in returning to the material now, with cooler heads and cleaner trays, and asking what the colon was actually telling us.
The Pre-Vote Reading: Uncertainty in the Descending Colon
The readings conducted in the days immediately preceding the referendum were, in retrospect, among the more technically demanding of recent years. The material presented with unusual complexity: heavy scarring along the mucosal surface, a pronounced dark occlusion near the caecum, and a notably prominent plica semicircularis. Taken together, these indicators pointed unmistakably toward a nation in deep structural tension — not the clean, directional signal a practitioner hopes for when a client wants a straight answer, but an honest reflection of what was, by any measure, an unresolved political situation.
The scarring, in particular, should have been weighted more heavily in the final interpretation. In colonic readings, surface scarring of that density and distribution tends to indicate long-standing divisions rather than acute ones — wounds that predate the immediate question by some years. Several practitioners who reviewed their notes after the vote acknowledged that they had read the scarring as contextual rather than predictive, which may have led to underweighting it in their final assessments. This is a useful lesson in not allowing the framing of a client’s question to determine which features you prioritise.
The caecal occlusion is worth addressing separately. Dark concentrations near the caecum have historically been associated with latent or obscured forces — influences present in the situation but not yet visible at the surface level of public discourse. In political readings, this marker often corresponds to organisational momentum that has not yet become legible to conventional analysis. Whether one reads this as the structural effectiveness of the Leave campaign’s ground operation or as something more diffuse is a matter of interpretive tradition, but the indicator itself was, in hindsight, clearly significant. For a broader discussion of how structural anomalies in the lower gut can complicate an otherwise readable specimen, the article on spleenfold mechanics covers similar territory from a different anatomical angle.
Post-Vote Analysis: Confirming What Was Already Present
The follow-up readings conducted after the result was announced offered something that practitioners rarely have access to: a direct comparison between a pre-event specimen and the same colon examined in the aftermath of a major political shift. This is methodologically unusual, and the data are correspondingly interesting.
The scarring had intensified — not in ways that suggested new damage, but in ways consistent with existing fissures deepening under continued pressure. The caecal occlusion had expanded and darkened. The plica semicircularis, so prominent in the pre-vote reading, had begun to recede. This last detail is perhaps the most instructive. A prominent plica at the time of a reading often signals peak momentum — the high-water mark of a particular directional energy. Its subsequent recession did not indicate that the movement had failed, but rather that it had achieved its immediate purpose and was now subject to the ordinary processes of consolidation and entropy. This is consistent with what we observed in the political situation through 2017 and beyond.
The practical question this raises — one that comes up regularly in training contexts — is whether post-event readings have divinatory value or merely descriptive value. The short answer is both, provided the practitioner is clear about which mode they are operating in. A post-event colonic reading is not a prediction; it is a diagnostic. It can tell you the condition of the field following a significant event, which in turn may inform readings about what comes next. Used carefully, comparative readings of this kind are among the more reliable tools available to practitioners working in political or social divination.
Methodological Notes for Practitioners
Several reflections on methodology seem worth recording here for those who may be undertaking similar work in advance of future electoral events.
First, the question of specimen selection. The sheep’s colon used in the 2016 readings was freshly harvested and of good quality, but there is an ongoing debate in the community about whether bovine material provides a more stable read for large-scale national questions. The argument is essentially one of scale: bovine organs carry a greater energetic surface area and may therefore be better suited to questions that involve tens of millions of people. This remains contested, and practitioners should work with whatever material they can source reliably and legally — for guidance on that, the article on working with butchers is a sensible starting point.
Second, the problem of confirmation bias. Brexit was a subject about which virtually every practitioner in the United Kingdom had a personal view, and personal views are among the most persistent sources of interpretive drift in any reading. When the material is genuinely ambiguous — as the pre-vote colon was — there is a well-documented tendency to resolve that ambiguity in the direction of one’s own expectations. The discipline required to hold an ambiguous reading as ambiguous, rather than resolving it prematurely, is one of the more demanding aspects of political divination. It is addressed in more detail in the discussion of unreliable organs and interference from the heart, which, while focused on cardiac material, contains principles applicable across all organ work.
Third, and most practically: document everything before the event, not after. The value of the 2016 readings as a case study depends almost entirely on the fact that notes were made, dated, and retained prior to the result being known. Readings reconstructed after the fact — however sincerely — carry no evidential weight and do not contribute to the body of knowledge in any meaningful way. If you are planning to undertake readings in advance of forthcoming elections, referendums, or other significant collective events, establish your documentation practice before you begin.
What the Colon Tells Us About Political Divination More Broadly
The Brexit readings are, in one sense, a specific historical case. In another, they are representative of a recurring challenge in colonic political divination: the gap between what the entrails show and what clients — and practitioners — want them to show. Large-scale social questions produce large-scale ambiguity in the material, and large-scale ambiguity is genuinely difficult to communicate to a client who has come to you for a clear answer about the future of a trading bloc.
This is not a failure of the practice. It is a feature of it. The colon does not simplify. It reflects the condition of the situation as it stands, including all of its unresolved tensions, competing forces, and structural uncertainties. A reading that returns a genuinely ambiguous result on a genuinely ambiguous question is, in that sense, an accurate reading. Learning to present that to a client honestly, without defaulting to false clarity or retreating into vague hedging, is part of what separates a competent practitioner from one who is merely telling people what they want to hear.
The 2016 colon, for all its complexity, was doing its job. It remains to be seen whether the same can be said for everyone who read it.
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