The high-security fence that abruptly appears on the common land is a powerful and unambiguous symbol of The Alienation Caused by Political Division. This structure, with its razor wire and surveillance cameras, transforms a shared public space into a private, exclusionary territory, physically manifesting the social fractures of post-Brexit Britain. The fence represents the new, hostile borders being drawn between neighbors and communities. The novel explicitly connects the literal barrier to the national mood, stating, “All across the country, the country was divided, a fence here, a wall there, a line drawn here, a line crossed there” (61). The fence is more than just a backdrop; it functions as an antagonistic force in the narrative. Elisabeth is confronted by a guard for simply walking near it, and her mother is arrested after throwing a barometer at it in a moment of political frustration. This act of protest, using an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure, symbolically attacks the oppressive political atmosphere that the fence represents. The fence thus is a monument to a new era of suspicion, control, and the death of communal trust, embodying the novel’s critique of a society turning against itself.

Elisabeth’s repeated and absurd struggles to renew her passport form a motif that critiques the bureaucratic nature of identity and citizenship in a state obsessed with control. The increasingly bizarre reasons why her photographs are rejected, first because her head is the “INCORRECT SIZE” and later because her eyes are too small, highlight a system where arbitrary rules have become more important than the individual they’re meant to identify. These scenes satirize the logic of a government that, in the wake of the Brexit vote, is tightening its grip on who belongs and who does not. The passport, ostensibly a document of freedom and movement, becomes a symbol of constraint and frustration. Elisabeth’s prolonged ordeal at the Post Office, a once-familiar community hub, transforms it into a site of alienation and nonsensical power dynamics. The conflict between Elisabeth and the Post Office effectively becomes about the right to be recognized as oneself without being forced to conform to an impossible, inhuman standard. This motif powerfully illustrates the dehumanizing effects of a political climate where suspicion and regulation override common sense and human connection, reflecting a key aspect of The Alienation Caused by Political Division.