Sean O’Grady (who voted LEAVE in 2016) writes in the "i"-
"Brexit ‘bumps in the road’ turn out to be terrifying journey to nowhere
Ah. So that’s what Michael Gove meant by “bumps in the road” after a no-deal Brexit. Food prices up. Electricity up. Lorries stuck in the channel ports for days on end. Riots. A “low” threat to running water. Immigration checks at Calais or Paris or European airports. Gibraltar blockaded virtually. Low-income groups – that’s the poor – hit hardest. Cod wars. Social care collapsing. Shortages of medicines. And the return of the black market! The 21st-century spiv may be the abiding legacy of this short, tragic Johnson government.
It’s difficult to know what to make of all this. The most offensive part, for me, is the blatant deception. It doesn’t feel right to have been lied to
by our leaders. “Bumps in the road” sounded like a kind of tranquilliser for the anxious punters: a charming, cosy euphemism, as if we were all going on a jolly excursion to the countryside. (The irony being, of course, that all those truckers and holidaymakers won’t be going on any roads, bumpy or otherwise, once they meet French customs.)
Calling this a “reasonable worst case” is a pathetic attempt to sugarcoat it.
It is a contradiction in terms. Sometimes panic is a rational response. It is wrong to dress it up. It can be sugarcoated no longer. It will be awful; Brexit (which I voted for) is not worth it. Much of this chaos will go on for years, if not decades.
The Government can only do so much to mitigate matters. It will not do the extra admin for businesses; it will not forever subsidise the extra costs. The Department for Business probably will not take over car production from Honda, and Defra probably will not be getting itself into hill farming. Boris Johnson will not stand in the queue at the Post Office for you so you can obtain your international driving permit.
As for the censored prorogation papers, they really must be dynamite.
It will need a court order to drag them out of Government – and I believe they would expose lies directed at everyone from the Queen to Larry (inset), the Downing Street cat (“no plans for a car-hating dog to join the team – a worst case scenario”).
No wonder Boris Johnson’s gang didn’t want Parliament around. Who’d want to be accountable for this mess?"