A chaotic Brexit will cost the Conservatives dearly
Wednesday 30 January 2019 04:13, UK
Beth Rigby, deputy political editor
Back in 2013, when I was covering the Scottish independence referendum, I broke a story about Scots having to pay more for food if they voted to leave the United Kingdom.
This was because the costs of doing business in Scotland were higher for the likes of Asda and Morrisons, and retail executives were not going to pass on those extra costs to English consumers if their Scottish neighbours decided to vote for independence.
It was a story that lit a touch paper in what was a bitterly fought referendum: the Scottish National Party denounced the comments as scaremongering. A campaign began urging shoppers to voice their anger by boycotting Asda and Morrisons stores.
Why did they react in this way? Perhaps because the prospect of higher food bills hit a nerve with undecided voters.
The culture war that Brexit has unleashed cannot be undone. It will run on and on. But politicians should pause and consider this: the basic role of a government is to look after its citizens and not impose unnecessary difficulties on them
I was reminded of that story this week when a consortium of retail bosses, including chiefs from Sainsbury's, Asda, KFC, Waitrose and M&S, issued a warning to their customers that leaving the EU without a deal could bring about a significant disruption to food supplies.
You might have thought that such a letter would spark a run on the shops, with the public stockpiling food for the impending Armageddon: don't forget that 2018 was the year people dialled 999 because KFC ran out of chicken, after road traffic accidents outside its depot disrupted supply.
And yet the prospect of empty food shelves appears to have left the British public completely unmoved: queues outside Tesco are yet to materialise. And as for the political class? They were far too busy debating various amendments to Theresa May's stalled Brexit deal this week to even rouse themselves into conversation about it.
Perhaps this is just complacency. The vast majority of Britons today have never lived through food shortages or rationing, while the notion of a no-deal Brexit is still too abstract for us to grasp.
We haven't yet properly engaged with the prospect, nor do we in reality think it will come to pass. In the end, we conclude, our political masters are not incompetent enough to engineer a situation where our local shops run out of food.
But it is also a reflection of the culture war which Brexit has unleashed in the UK. The entrenchment of views and identities on opposing sides have deepened ever since the vote.
Elements of Leave and Remain are in their own echo chambers, banging the drum for a "pure Brexit" or a "people's vote" as the moderate voices are edged out.
Even the prime minister isn't in the mood to compromise: "Her door is open but her mind is closed," is how Hilary Benn rather deliciously described Mrs May's approach to last week's "cross-party" talks.
And so, the threat of food shortages is dismissed either as another iteration of "Project Fear" or a price worth paying for freedom from the EU.
During the Scottish independence referendum, the public - and politicians -- took these sort of threats seriously and now they barely even blink. And why would they? When discussions descend into a culture war, the opposite side inevitably holds irreconcilable values and are not worth listening to anyway.
But one thing that really was worth listening to on Tuesday, whichever side of the Brexit divide you sit, was the remarks made by the former cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin on the implications of a no-deal Brexit for the government.
"If those risks materialise, our party will not be forgiven for many years to come," said the senior MP, his voice cracking in the Commons chamber.
"It will be the first time that we have consciously taken a risk on behalf of our nation, and terrible things will happen to real people in our nation because of that risk, and we will not be able to argue that it was someone else's fault."
The culture war that Brexit has unleashed cannot be undone. It will run on and on. But politicians should pause and consider this; the basic role of a government is to look after its citizens and not impose unnecessary difficulties on them.
Theresa May won't rule out no deal. Removing that card from her hand leaves her without jeopardy in the negotiations. But don't mistake public complacency as a licence to play poker with their everyday lives. Chaotic Brexit will cost the Conservative government dear.
Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.
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