Leaving the EU was never going to be a brie-ze

As we enter the final few weeks of this wretched year, it’s worth looking forward to 2021. The past week has given us a sneak peak of how it might start. To be fair, the government did that in its 7,000-lorry queue predicting ‘reasonable worst case scenario’.

The most recent jams were down to “Christmas, Covid-19 and stockpiling” but as Dominic Raab pointed out were absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, at least not if you ignore the last one.

Customs chaos and a new coronavirus variant mean the first days of the Republic of Kent are shaping up to be quite the rollercoaster - and to top it off no deal would see the cost of French cheese soar.

All of this, especially the brie part, is depressing stuff so it’s little wonder MailOnline ran the cheery ‘Ten ways YOU can help make No Deal Brexit a success for Britain’. The lack of a ‘government sponsored content’ strapline meant, presumably, it was judged fit for publication based on the British-caught, Navy-protected pearls of wisdom offered.

Reeling from downbeat headlines and the brie news I set aside my misgivings and tucked in. No deal would mean we can ‘ditch ridiculous rules limiting hoovers to 900watts’.

This reinforced the illusion the article was satire and confirmed my suspicions it had begun life as ‘10 reasons No Deal would be good for YOU’ before the author was forced to bail out with only one.

Invites to only eat British fish and holiday at home seemed more like necessities than choices. Buying a second home seemed illadvised but eating more sushi was something I could get behind.

Then came the body blow - they tried to dress up the brie news as if it was a good thing. Its cost could rocket by 40%, so it’s time to opt for ‘Baron Bigod and Stinking Bishop’. I slammed shut my laptop in horror.

I tried to be more positive but I’ve ended up with a garage-load of stockpiled fromage.

This confirmed my suspicions it had begun life as ‘10 reasons No Deal would be good for YOU’ before the author was forced to bail out with only one