In 2005, referenda about the EU’s constitutional treaty were held in several European countries, which resulted in a No vote in France and the Netherlands and which left the European polity both devastated and clueless. The present essay describes metaphors in British journalism beginning with the year before the referenda and ending a few months after them. In 675 examined newspaper articles from the Sun and the Guardian, mostly commentaries, diverse conceptual patterns are found that belong to five major headings (= metaphor composition, as well as looser kinds of metaphor pastiche.