It has been said that Brexit was a solution in search of a problem. The campaign encouraged the idea that voting for Brexit could satisfactorily shift the practice and discourse of national political priorities; the downside proved to be the confusion over exactly what specific issues it was meant to address. An indeterminate number of loosely focused grievances could not easily be translated into a programme. The protracted parliamentary stand-off in the following years encouraged suspicion about any attempts to adjust or fine-tune precise legal provisions – suspicion of elite interests, of reversion to rule by anonymous experts and of legal process itself. A distinctly close vote in the actual referendum was rapidly mythologised as an overwhelming popular mandate, even though it was unclear what exactly it was a mandate for. The lasting legacy has been to reinforce a ‘theatrical’ approach to politics, in which actual problem-solving and long-term strategising yield to performative or gestural decisions. Both globally and nationally, this is an increasingly disturbing and destabilising trend; those on both sides of the Brexit debate need to acknowledge this as a real issue about the health of a critical and engaged democracy.