A man is writing 'Stop Brexit' across Europe with his van and a GPS tracker

Did the outcome of the EU referendum in June 2016 cause the entire nation so collectively abandon all logic and rational thought? On one hand it’s impossible to say, but on the other hand… yes, it absolutely did.

Sure, some of the reaction was probably just in keeping with the sort of thing we’d come to expect of the perpetrators, but one thing’s for certain: we were never even close to someone attempting to make a point using nothing more than a van, a GPS tracker, and the continent of Europe.

Look, people react to setbacks in different ways. Some even write pro-Brexit songs for reasons we can’t quite fathom. But Andy Pardy may just have taken things to a new level.

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Pardy, a 28-year-old former consultant, quit his job to drive across Europe. Now, I know what you’re thinking – this seems normal enough, isn’t it just like interrailing? Well, we have some news for you: it is absolutely nothing like that.

According to The New European, Pardy set off across the continent in his van with the intention of using a GPS tracker to spell out ‘Stop Brexit’. Because there ain’t no Pardy like an anti-Brexit Pardy (no, I’m not apologising).

“I had it when I was on a run. You know, I was tracing my route on a run using a running app and just thought, why can’t I do this on a big scale?” he said.

However, sometimes a point arrives where you need to question not whether you can, but whether you should.

This is what he is hoping to achieve:

So far, he’s done the S (below), the T and the O.

On the surface, and certainly in Pardy’s head, he is making a solid point about freedom of movement: with a hard Brexit in place, the opportunity to drive through more than two-dozen EU member states might become logistically trickier. EU travel certainly looks set to become more expensive, at the very least.

“It’s the last summer that we are in the EU as we know it. Of course we don’t know what the outcome of the discussions will be in terms of freedom of movement, but it’s a statement I wanted to make,” he explained.

“It took me a long time [to plot the route] – I think it took me about three or four weeks. I realised I wanted to spell ‘Stop Brexit’. I knew the shapes that I needed to draw across the continent, and I then started plotting various places I also wanted to visit.

“I knew the rough shape and then started to work out how I could draw it by going past or through or staying in the places I really wanted to visit. So I’ve combined it – it’s about drawing the words and making the point, but it’s also about trying to visit some of the best places and bring them to life, which I hope I’m doing through my Instagram and Twitter and through my blog.”

However, we do wonder what he’s hoping to achieve with it all. You know, aside from using up a load of petrol and making leavers hate remainers even more than they already do. He is using his savings to fun the trip: £6,000 on a 10-year-old VW Transporter and £5,000 on fuel.

You can follow his 30,000km journey on his website, or on Instagram. He has mapped out a detailed route, albeit one where the word ‘Brexit’ is completed back-to-front. Sounds like a decent metaphor.

(Images: Pixabay)