Are ministers ignoring what a Brexit no deal would really mean?

There is considerable straw-clutching in Whitehall and Westminster about the impact of a no-deal Brexit. For example, a respected and experienced minister contacted me last night to give me the good news that the European Commission had decided that, in the event of no-deal, the ports of Dover and Folkestone would be kept open “for nine months with no checks”. The minister had been given the great news in an internal departmental briefing. “Wow” I thought. And then “you what!” Because I had read the no-deal planning papers put out by the European Commission, and had somehow missed this dramatic capitulation by the EU, that would see the continuation of frictionless trade in goods at the UK’s most important border with the EU’s single market, to avert those feared shortages of medicines, and food and car parts. I then immediately contacted EU sources, to be met with responses of utter amazement. There would be no such softening or sweetening of no-deal, I was told.