The Brexit Chronicles

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Juncker?

Published on October 28th, 2018.

Oh woe are we! Hens shall cease to lay and cows in milk run dry; horses will go lame, and crops wither in the fields. Maidens be afflicted by boils and barrenness, European bound flights grounded or hurled down from on high by vengeful furies; animals in transit upon the midnight hour be culled where they stand before being unceremoniously buried in mass graves by a gridlocked M20, now turned into a fifty mile long continental truck park. A wan, blood red sun might give but a little warmth to skies as hazy as those after the 1783 Laki volcano eruption, and the very air reek of brimstone. Nary a light will be seen to shine in this cold and darkening land as the power goes out. The cost of minced beef shall rise by 50% (but why only minced beef?) and cheese by 35%. Our supplies of toilet paper might even be interrupted! Surely Death and Famine shall wander abroad these twilight wastelands of desolation... So sayeth the tabloids and some of the more excitable Remainers, frantic to postpone or derail the Dread Day at any cost.

Well if that's the way you want it mes amis, then so be it; Britain Can Take It. There are still people alive who remember the previous time 'europe' tried to blockade us into submission; that attempt failed, and by jove we'll see off anything else you Continental blighters might try! We'll Dig For Victory; planting spuds along our roadside verges; we shall fight at the supermarkets and the allotments, in the warehouses and retail parks; we shall never surrender...

But before tearing at our collective hair and wailing that the sky is falling in on us, or going Colonel Blimp and Mrs Miniver, let's pause for a moment and consider.
Yes, over the last forty plus years of our EU membership the UK economy has become more eurocentric, but interdependent supply chains cut both ways: if We can't do without Them, it is equally the case that They can't do without Us. It follows then, that an abrupt 'No Deal' which suits neither of the parties is unconscionable; some sort of Deal - last minute, messy, not quite what anyone would want, but better than the alternative - will be arrived at.

I'm not by nature a Pollyanna; far from it, as you may gather from reading my Wattpad catalogue! This isn't optimism but realism I expect to come into play, which is why I don't expect next year's Sunday supplements to carry the latest celebrity chef recipes for roast pet Labrador. So should you be scouring online for ideas on how to incorporate into your meal plans that pallet load of canned All Day Breakfasts you brought on impulse after reading a tabloid No Deal story? No; because it remains a possibility despite the rationale not to make an utter mess of it that the leadership of the UK and EU will do just that. Instead I think it would be wise to put by a small 'gap bridging' stockpile if you don't have such a thing already. Start doing so now, so that if you don't use it in the aftermath of an apocalyptic Brexit you'll still have something to hand in case severe weather this winter were to disrupt the increasingly lengthy and fragile supply chains to the shops, and it is better to prepare now than panic later.

One final thought for this entry; today was perhaps the final day of EU wide time change synchronisation. By the the time the clocks were due to spring forward again on March 31st 2019 - if Brussels hasn't decided to abandon the practice as seems possible - the UK should have notionally left the European Union.