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What’s in Boris Johnson’s £100m no-deal preparation leaflets? Here’s a taster

James Felton

From eating pets and warming up kippers to embracing martial law, this advice could help us survive a no-deal Brexit

Tue 30 Jul 2019 08.34 EDT

At this news the pound fell at an alarming rate, pretty much acting in the opposite manner to Johnson on a zipline, and hit a new 28-month low. On the bright side, we will soon hit parity with the euro, essentially finally joining to the currency by the back door, and it’s all thanks to Brexiteers.

So how has the emergency committee decided to prepare us for something pretty much unprecedented in British history in three months’ time? While sitting around in the Cobra briefing room – normally reserved for national emergencies that we haven’t brought upon ourselves – Johnson and his team decided to talk about leafleting. The government will launch a new campaign to inform the whole country about no-deal preparations, with costs expected to run into nine figures.

A few years after Theresa May looked a nurse dead in the eye and said“There’s no magic money tree”, here they are spending £100m on a leaflet explaining how best to eat your dog. These leaflets will have the difficult job of assuring everyone that everything is going to be fine while also containing enough information to convince the EU that we’re taking it seriously and are prepared to go through with it. They have to tell people “This is what you wanted, isn’t it great” but also “Here are some steps you can take so you don’t die in November”.

It’s a tough balancing act, but I have decided to offer my copywriting services, as a patriotic duty:

Section 1: The following pets are now food

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 ‘There’s no problem here that can’t be solved by reclassifying Mr Biggles as food.’ A dog at a People’s Vote march in London, March 2019. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Remainers and people that ship food in and out of the country on a regular basis (eg major supermarkets) would have you believe that there will be shortages in parts of the country on 1 November, as 30% of our supplies come from the EU.

Where’s their blitz spirit? Did you know (true story) that we massacred over 750,000 of our own dogs and cats at the beginning of the second world war? OK, that wasn’t about serving them up for Sunday lunch, but making sure we didn’t have to worry about keeping them fed. I say kill two birds with one stone: there’s surely no problem here that can’t be solved by reclassifying Mr Biggles as food. Recipes on page nine.

Section 2: Blackouts are nature’s way of telling you to go to bed

Everybody loves camping off-grid, seeing the stars come out and hearing the wildlife emerge from the woods. When the blackouts come, try to think of Birmingham as your tent.

Section 3: Have you considered not having diabetes?

The remoaner elite – in these specific circumstances comprised of our own ministers, advisers and facts – say that no deal could disrupt supply lines through ports, with longer checks on goods causing a backlog of medicines trapped at borders and eventually going to waste. To this, and without any real reason or proof, we say nah, that won’t happen, probably.

I ask you this: if we’re going to deny these realities – which it’s very much clear we are – would it really kill you to pretend you don’t have diabetes for a bit? Hmm? Have a little try for me, there’s a good chap.

Section 4: Fill your bathtub with water if you want to live

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 ‘Keep water in your bathtub in case you need to drink it for a month.’ Photograph: Michele Adamson/Getty Images/EyeEm

Chemicals to clean water might not make it into the UK, so please keep water in your bathtub in case you need to drink it for a month. I know this sounds bad, but honestly who actually enjoys washing anyway?

Section 5: Keep your spirits up

The tough bit is nearly over. Keep your spirits up by doing stuff the EU wouldn’t let us do: you don’t have bananas, but if you did they’d sure as hell have a bend in them, enjoy that thought.

Take your kippers off their ice pillows. No pillows for kippers! Rip your shirt off and scream “FREEDOM”, like in Braveheart. OK, so that turned out to be a British law, and all you’re really doing is inviting food poisoning and diarrhoea because fish needs to be kept cool, but at least diarrhoea was your choice. Which – to be absolutely clear – it already was.

Section 6: Embrace martial law

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 ‘Everyone loved playing army as a kid.’ Members of the British armed forces marching in Salisbury, June 2019. Photograph: Corporal Ben Beale/British Army/PA

Everybody loved playing army as a kid, and in the end isn’t Brexit really about wanting your childhood back? Voila, we give you martial law. Keep your head down and nobody dies. What fun!

Section 7: Congratulations, we Brexited ourselves

We did it. We’re finally free from the shackles of the EU and its laws and its medicine and the tyranny of its [squints] food. We survived! And, as we all know, that was the prize of Brexit promised in the 2016 referendum campaign: vote leave and we’ll scrape through with our lives. Just.

• James Felton is a TV and radio comedy writer

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/boris-johnson-no-deal-preparation-leaflets-advice-brexit#comment-131558566


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RobertBleeker 

01

What’s in Boris Johnson’s £100m no-deal preparation leaflets?

1. As I did mention in an earlier Guardian comment on this very subject, I did consider the fact that Johnson did visit the UK police force as one of his first (PR) duties in the country, as a dire sign of things to come, once a no-deal Brexit will have been realised : Johnson and his team do anticipate at present already, that once the no-Deal Rubicon will have been crossed, large protests and massive popular resistance will be organised.

2. These Large Protests might easily escalate into major riots, including looting and street-fights between extreme-right gangs and anxious Remainers / soft Brexiteers : Explosive scenery as a sort of announcement / forbode of a civil war in the UK (*).

3. Under those circumstances the UK police most certainly will be ordered on the streets to 'restore order' - so to take sides - and they might obey only to that order, if and when they on forehand will have been assured of additional / extra police officers and better equipment.

4. Next stop will be the appeasement by Johnson and Co, of the military, which will be badly needed, when the state of emergency will be declared and nightly curfews will have to be upheld.

5. You might think that I do overestimate the urge for drama by the Johnson government, but I can assure you, that not only will people be highly frustrated, when post-Brexit austerity will have set in, after a steep cliff-edge Brexit, the Johnson cabinet will also act according to its apparent preference for a fascist-like approach to government.

6. Think in this respect about the Tory extreme-right tendency (not necessarily exclusively represented by by the ERG alone) for chauvinist neo-nationalism, anti-democratic (for mainly populist and charisma based) leadership, anti-international governing bodies, white supremacism and a firm anti-scientific stance, that for example has to address the AGW climate-disaster that is rapidly unfolding over our global habitat at the moment.

7. So there is no such thing as coincidence in the frenetic way, that Johnson and his ultra-right fellow-plotters are behaving politically and socially at this point in time, for they already know what mischief might be in store for the UK population, once the 31th of October Brexit-threshold will have been passed.

8.   Although I do appreciate a bit of comedy (or black humour) every now and then on whatever subject, one can not simply avoid the observation, that things in the UK might indeed quickly change for the worse after a no-Deal Brexit in (only) a few months time.... 

(*) Not to speak of the highly realistic possibility of the restart of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, soon spilling over to England and/or the start of the war of Independence by Scottish nationalists.