It’s time to talk about what no deal really means

The main reason Conservative MPs prefer Boris Johnson’s government to Theresa May’s is because of its clarity of message. The government now has direction and purpose. Briefings from Tory HQ, delivered even to those MPs who have managed to get away on holiday, have gone from intermittent and inconsistent to daily and succinct. The message is simple: Brexit will be delivered by 31 October, crime is being tackled and the NHS properly funded. We can expect to hear these messages, or variants thereof, for the next few months.

But there is one area where the government seems less sure of itself: what will happen in the event of no deal? The Prime Minister has long been reluctant to entertain the possibility as a likely outcome, after having said the odds on it happening are ‘a million to one’. He is a firm believer in the preparation paradox: by preparing for no deal, you avoid it. He has pitched himself as an optimistic leader, decrying the naysayers as doomsters and gloomsters. But with Brussels this week rejecting Johnson’s call to ditch the backstop and renegotiate, even the most optimistic souls in government are beginning to regard a no-deal Brexit as the most likely outcome. So it’s time to talk about it. But how to do so without scaring voters, or saying anything that might come back to haunt them?

A taste of the challenge ahead arrived last weekend with a leak of Operation Yellowhammer. The official government document set out various scenarios for a no-deal Brexit: food, medicine and fuel shortages and the return of a hard border in Ireland. In response, Downing Street attempted to play down the leak, claiming it was an old document from the previous regime which was based on ‘worst case scenarios’. The finger of blame was pointed at an ex-minister working against no deal.