Anthony Browne

It is a sign of our extraordinary times that the main trade association for shops – the British Retail Consortium – is sending out an urgent message to customers: “buy less”. More specifically, they have urged people not to buy more than they need. The national panic buying and stockpiling has emptied shelves in supermarkets across the country, and has brought out the worst in a few people. One relative said he saw a man clear a supermarket shelf of pasta into his shopping trolley, and an old lady asked if she could just have one packet to eat, and he said no. It makes the blood boil. It has brought out the best in others, with community groups across the country mobilising to help make sure vulnerable people can get food and supplies. They are the heroes.

Update: Heidi Allen has announced that she will no longer stand at the next election. This weekend, Anthony Browne wrote about her confusing political odyssey: As I pound the streets of South Cambridgeshire where I am the Conservative candidate, the most common reaction I get from voters is “How did that happen?”. (That, at least, is an edited version to keep things family-friendly for Spectator readers). It is usually accompanied by a liberal dosage of decidedly unparliamentary language and the sort of words that if I repeated would lead to me being accused of inflaming passions in politics.

How bad would a no-deal Brexit really be? This is now perhaps the most important question in politics, and the one provoking greatest disagreement. The answer will help decide whether parliament allows Brexit to happen, and whether Tory MPs bring down their own government. If they think calamity would follow, patriotic rebels might risk a general election to stop the Tories. But what if it would not be so bad? And is there any way of finding out? Almost everyone accepts it will cause problems, but views range from manageable to ‘national suicide’. It is difficult to predict complex events without historic precedent, but there are other reasons for the divergent views. The first is that there is not a single ‘no deal’, but a whole spectrum.

How bad would a no-deal Brexit really be? This is now perhaps the most important question in politics, and the one provoking greatest disagreement. The answer will help decide whether parliament allows Brexit to happen, and whether Tory MPs bring down their own government. If they think calamity would follow, patriotic rebels might risk a general election to stop the Tories. But what if it would not be so bad? And is there any way of finding out? Almost everyone accepts it will cause problems, but views range from manageable to ‘national suicide’. It is difficult to predict complex events without historic precedent, but there are other reasons for the divergent views. The first is that there is not a single ‘no deal’, but a whole spectrum.

The political dysfunction in Parliament seems to be rubbing off on much of our commentariat. Many have concluded that the whole political system is about to undergo an earthquake as seismic and landscape-changing as anything that mere plate tectonics can conjure up. The main political parties will no longer be Labour and Tory, defined by being working class or middle class, big state or little state, socialist or free enterprise. Instead, goes the new thinking, there will be two main parties defined by being anti-Brexit and pro-Brexit (which may or may not be Labour and Conservative). Now it is easy to see why people might start to claim this. There is plenty of cause for concern right now. But it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of voter motivation.

Are we suffering a national humiliation? There has been a lot of commentary – not least from elements of the Remain-supporting press – about how the UK has become an international laughing stock. Papers in other countries have joined in the chuckling. Recent events have not been good for our reputation for stability and sanity. However, the one thing that the UK could do to destroy what international credibility it has left, is to change its mind on Brexit, and go back to the EU asking whether we can stay after all. Our national humiliation would be complete. We would be the employee who stormed out publicly, insisting to everyone that they could make it on their own, only to beg their employer to take them back.

Why us? Why is the UK the first – and only – country to decide to leave the EU? Greenland, Algeria (when it was part of the French empire) and the French Caribbean island of St Barthélemy have all been in the EU and are no more, but the UK is the first full member country to hold a referendum and decide ‘enough’. Why us, and not one of the many other members nursing doubts about the EU? There are many reasons, none of which are to do with us being more inward looking or racist. We are an island, but arguably the most outward looking EU nation. We do have issues with racism, but various studies have concluded we are among the least racist countries in Europe.

I stood next to Jean Claude-Juncker, then president of the European Council and prime minister of Luxembourg, when news flashed up on the TV screens of the astonishing rejection by French voters of the draft European Constitution in their 2005 referendum. He could have responded in so many ways, to try to understand why the voters in traditionally one of Europe’s most Europhile countries emphatically rejected further EU integration. But his immediate response, without drawing breath, was: “They will just have to vote again.” In fact, the French voters weren’t trusted to give the right answer second time around, and so the treaty was pushed through the French parliament instead.

Like everyone nowadays, I can predict everything except the future. But if MPs reject the government’s Withdrawal Agreement (whenever it ends up being put before the Commons), there is one outcome that many are campaigning for: a second referendum. It is particularly supported by Remainers, who see it as the only democratically legitimate way to overturn the result of the first referendum, and so provide an exit from Brexit. From former prime ministers down, the cries for a so-called 'People’s Vote' are becoming deafening. The arguments in favour can be persuasive: we now know (sort of) on what terms we will leave the EU, we know more about Brexit, the public mood is changing: give the people a final say.

In the corridors of Westminster and the salons of some remainers, there is a lot of excited chatter about the “Norway option”. This would involve being a member of the EEA and single market, but not of the EU. Depending on who is pushing, Norway is presented as either a temporary or permanent alternative to Theresa May's troubled deal. But there are problems with this quick fix. The well discussed issue that being in the EEA doesn’t end freedom of movement is one; another is the fact that the Norway option doesn't end EU budget contributions. But more fundamentally, few appreciate just how a regime that (sort of) suits Norway is completely unsuitable for the UK.

‘But what are you going to do with the powers?’ the minister asked, while I negotiated devolution of powers to London when Boris was mayor. The government wouldn’t grant powers unless we explained how we would use them. And that is what is missing in the Brexit non-debate. We are ‘taking back control’ — but we haven’t really thought what we will do with that control once we have it. It is true there has been discussion of trade deals, transforming the Common Agricultural Policy and the colour of our passports. But if that was all we could do, even most Brexiteers wouldn’t have considered it worth it. So, what could we do once we Brexit? Well actually, given how extensive EU law is, an awful lot.