The Curious Case of The Weatherspoons Pub Chain and Brexit

Adebayo Adeniran
4 min readJan 26, 2023

The cruel and tragic irony of one of Britain’s best known brands.

Tim Martin, the founder of the Weatherspoons Pub chain. Captured via Twitter

Anyone who knows anything about the United Kingdom will appreciate the importance of pubs in British life.

Publicans or the boozer, as they are known, serve as a sort of social and cultural barometer for millions of folks here.

On a beautiful summer’s day in Euston, Camden Town, Islington, Brixton, Oxford Circus, Regents Street, Notting Hill, Vauxhall, Liverpool Street in my home city, you will find lots of people socializing while enjoying their favourite pint.

Even if you aren’t the drinking type, you don’t want to be excluded from pub visits by friends and colleagues from work; it’s where the action takes place.

And pubs have been immortalized in some of our longest running soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street. The fictional Albert Street’s publican known as The Queen Vic, which has provided so many talking points over the course of its near 40 year existence.

So why am I bringing this up?

The unabated rise in the closure of pubs across the United Kingdom.

While there is no question that the pandemic has had a devastating effect on businesses across the country, it is clear to see that our…

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Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible