Anne Widdecombe's 'salves' speech to the EU parliament in summer 2019 is occasion to turn to George Orwell to see clearer historical and cultural contexts for Brexit. Orwell's writings were published largely in the 30s and 40s, a period before the idea of the Common Market was even a twinkle in the eye of General de Gaulle. If the split in the 2016 referendum vote represents something of the schizophrenic character of the English population, then Orwell does not so much ‘embody’ that dualism as project himself wholeheartedly into it.