Section:GDN 1J PaGe:1 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 19:08 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Every minister has been “turbo charged” to prepare
for the great no-deal blitz in three months’ time. The
idea is to terrify the enemy: the eff ect will be to petrify
ourselves, shocking and awing us into understanding
the full implications of no deal.
“There are no areas of relevance to the economy
where the UK, EU and the business community are
prepared well enough for no deal,” a CBI report said
yesterday. “No one is ready,” nor can they ever be,
was the warning. A few sandbags will only hold back
the fl ood waters briefl y. In response, the government
announced a £100m public awareness information
bombardment: nine out 10 businesses and exporters
are unprepared for no-deal obstacles – the road haulage
licences, phyto-sanitary vet checks, pages of manifests
and customs dockets to be stamped and authorised,
delaying them at borders.
Politically the nuclear analogy is apt. Those who
remember the cold war civil defence Protect and Survive
leafl ets of the 1980s – telling us to block up windows and
hide in the cupboard under the stairs, with torches, tins,
water and sanitation buckets – recall those chillingly
matter-of-fact warnings. A fi ve-mile radius of total
obliteration and indefi nite radiation fall out. It struck
horror at home and galvanised recruitment to CND.Boris Johnson’s mock-Churchillian gambit will
have the same eff ect. The more billions he wastes on
preparations – the more talk of empty supermarket
shelves, medical shortages or 10,000 riot police standing
by – the more the madness of all this will dawn on people.
Blitz spirit? British pluck and nerve? Not a chance in the
face of even mild inconveniences. The pound fell again
on the news of these turbocharging Brexit plans : how
will that please people setting off on holiday – let alone
a stream of closures hard on the heels of the Ford and
Honda plants in Bridgend and Swindon?
No doubt the nation is as plucky and full of nerve as
ever it was when facing a genuine existential threat –
Nazis across the Channel or alien invaders. But there is no
enemy attack. This is just us bombing ourselves – breaking
away, of our own accord, for notions of “freedom” and
“sovereignty” that turn out to be a miasma, all losses
and no gains. No amount of faux-Churchillian anti-
Johnny -Foreigner bombast will cover up what Johnson’s
Brexiteers have done to us. Nor do the 27 civilised EU
nations – not Angela Merkel, not Emmanuel Macron, not
the politely erudite Michel Barnier, nor the new European
commission president, Ursula von der
Leyen, fi t the bill as tyrants to blame for our
self-infl icted turmoil.A letter to Jeremy Corbyn: why I have to quit Labour Alastair Campbell, page 4
Why does Irish literature thrive? Because it takes risks Alex Clark, page 5
How wild boar are trashing European cities The long read, page 9
The Guardian Tuesday 30 July 2019
Polly
Toynbee
Opinion
and ideasG2
Daily
pullout
life &
arts
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InsideJohnson’s crew will repel voters
- there’s no need to fear him
Standing in Faslane Trident
submarine base, fi nger on the
button, our prime minister’s
Brexit strategy is MAD,
mutually assured destruction.
His preposterously nicknamed
‘Brexit war cabinet’ met for
the fi rst time yesterday.
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