This week Theresa May announced that she’ll spend more on the NHS because of the “Brexit dividend” (Brividend). Like a “jobs-first Brexit” or a unicorn, it’s a thing that’s entirely imaginary, since the likely loss of tax revenue due to slower growth after Brexit will more than offset the slightly more than 1% of the government budget we currently pay to the EU. Still, let us at least applaud May’s sobriety in not announcing a Brexit bonanza (Bronanza) or a Brexit jackpot (Brackpot).
The term “dividend”, here, borrows the rhetorical authority of finance to imply the very mathematical precision the idea totally lacks. From the Latin for “that which is to be divided”, “dividend” was originally a number you were dividing (by the divisor), and then applied to situations in which money was shared among a group of people – latterly, most often, shareholders in public companies.
Perhaps most apposite in the present political context is the sense of “dividend” that means the proceeds from gambling on the football pools. Leaving the EU is also a gamble, though you might think that betting on ball games remains a surer way of getting rich.
