By Emma Ferguson
The Irish Boarder Edition
Objective:
All players enter with different objectives; some deeply entrenched, while others enter only with the wish for a ‘Strong and Stable Britain’. The main objective of all players is to resolve the Irish boarder dispute and achieve Brexit. To do this players must come to an agreement on the future of free movement, business, trade and peace across the Irish boarder.
Equipment
- 1 Good Friday Agreement
- 1 Divorce Deal
- 1 Customs Union
- 1 Single Market
- 1 Unruly Cabinet
- 2 Dice
- 30 PMQ Cards
Players have 10 ‘Difficult Decision’ cards and 10 corresponding ‘Truth’ and ‘Lie’ cards each. *
*A Stormont Assembly is not included in this edition.
Players:
The May Bot, The Hammer and Sickle, The Crocodile, The Orange Sash and The Varad-Car
The Game:
All players start on ‘Go’.
The individual playing as the May-Bot rolls first.
All players take turns to roll the dice and progress round the negotiation table or ‘Boarder’. After you have completed your turn the dice passes to the player on your left.
Each time a player lands on ‘Go’ the banker pays them their salary.
Each player should have in front of them a list of objectives which they must complete to win the game. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- An Irish Language Act
- Preventing an Irish Language Act
- A Hard Boarder
- A Soft Boarder
- Britain Remaining in the Customs Union
- Britain Leaving the Customs Union
All player objectives must be achieved to complete the game.
The board has 100 ‘Play Spaces’ which require an action from a player. 50 are ‘Default’, 25 are ‘Rabble-Rouse’, 25 are ‘Difficult Decision’ and 5 are ‘Negotiate’.
If a player lands on a space marked ‘Negotiate’ all players must then discuss the future of the Irish boarder. This can be aided through forming alliances with those whom you share some ideological ground with, by forming alliances out of necessity due to an underwhelming snap election or by lying through your teeth.
As players make their way around the boarder other related issues may appear to set back the negotiations. These spaces are marked as ‘Difficult Decision’, ‘Rabble- Rouse’ and ‘Default’.
When a player lands on a space marked ‘Difficult Decision’ they must read aloud from one of their ‘Difficult Decision Cards’. The player must then choose whether to combat this issue with ‘Truth’ or a ‘Lie’.
Examples include:
- Difficult Decision – ‘The Foreign Secretary has called the May-Bot’s customs partnership “Crazy”’
- ✓ Truth – Do as your predecessor and tell him to stop putting ‘Boris before Britain’
- X Lie – Say you still have ‘full confidence in the foreign secretary’
- Difficult Decision – Your party are being questioned as to why the most recent power sharing talks failed
- ✓ Truth – Say you prefer collecting your salary without working for it and can’t get over your sectarian issues
- X Lie – Blame it on the other party
Once a player has chosen to lie or tell the truth they are then subjected to scrutiny from the other players. Each player except the one being scrutinised selects a ‘Prime Minister’s Question Time Card’. Each player takes it in turn to heckle, accuse or support the player. It is the job of the player being scrutinised to either tell the truth, lie or respond with well-rehearsed rhetoric such as ‘No Surrender!’, ‘Brexit means Brexit’ or ‘For the Many Not the Few’. Questioning continues until a coup occurs, the truth is proven or the lie which originated proceedings is retracted.
If a player lands on ‘Rabble-Rouse’ they have the opportunity to:
- Say something which contradicts the government’s plan
- Start a back-bench rebellion
- Start a leadership challenge
- Resign
If a player lands on ‘Default’ then all game play stops and each player has to complete their default action in order for the game to resume. Default actions are:
- The May Bot – Lie
- The Hammer and Sickle – Lie differently
- The Crocodile – Criticise the Orange Sash
- The Orange Sash – Criticise the Crocodile
- The Varad-Car – To comment and be Ignored
To Win:
All players mus
Peace must be s
A deal must be re
Truth must prevai
All parties must be
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To Whomever It May Concern,
I recently purchased a copy of your board game ‘Brexit Means Brexit! – The Irish Boarder Edition’ in the hopes of finally understanding what Brexit means. I must say, what I have found is a very flawed system with many issues which require addressing immediately.
Firstly, a ‘Strong and Stable Britain’ is rather vague, as an objective, and is arguably very much in the eye of the beholder. Secondly, how the players are supposed to have ‘different objectives’ yet still all be able to win is beyond my comprehension.
I initially thought nothing of the lack of a Stormont Assembly but have since discovered that I cannot progress through the game without one included.
I have tried to place all players on ‘Go’ but we were unable to commence unless the Orange Sash and Crocodile were pushed back to the space marked ‘20 Years Ago’.
Getting the ‘May-Bot’ to roll first has been bloody difficult so I disregarded that rule in order to progress at all. Not only that, but the ‘May-bot’ seems to only roll when placed last following the threat of a back-bench rebellion. After making these alterations the game ran smoothly until it came to passing the dice from the Orange Sash to the Crocodile. This proved impossible and the Varad-Car had to be placed between them for play to continue. Once that had been addressed I really thought we were through the worst of it. But unfortunately, The Orange Sash and Crocodile appear to receive their £49,500 salary despite never reaching ‘Go’.
I feel I should point out the impossibility of the rule ‘All player objectives must be achieved to complete the game’ as many of the objectives are the antithesis of others.
A major issue which came to my attention while playing was that your game designers clearly cannot count. The board has 100 ‘Play Spaces’. 50 are ‘Default’, 25 are ‘Rabble-Rouse’ and the other 25 are ‘Difficult Decision’. The instructions state there are ‘5’ which are ‘Negotiate’. I don’t profess any great mathematical ability but that would make 105 spaces, of which there are not. In fact, there are no ‘Negotiate’ spaces on the board at all! And even if there were, five is not a sufficient number to achieve any meaningful negotiation. So much time is wasted Lying and ‘Rabble-rousing’ to leave no room for negotiation.
Finally, on my particular copy of the instructions the ‘To Win’ section appears to be torn resulting in incomplete instructions. This has the knock-on effect that I am unable to ‘resolve the Irish boarder dispute and achieve Brexit’.
In conclusion, I find this a very flawed game which has yet to answer my question as to what Brexit means. I would advise from my perspective as a consumer that a second revision is required.
Yours Sincerely,
Donald Tusk
European Council President