In the summer of 2018, 25 months after the point when it was too late for anyone to change their mind about this whole leaving the EU thing, the then Brexit secretary Dominic Raab received some of the uncomplimentary headlines with which he would later become so familiar, after reassuring a select committee that the government would ensure there were “adequate food supplies” after Britain left the European Union.
Even then, this didn’t feel like a great sign. A little over two years earlier, Raab had been telling the public that Brexit would make us all richer. Now he was reassuring us that we probably wouldn’t starve to death. It was like watching an air hostess cheerfully announce that a clear majority of this airline’s flights landed safely, several minutes after you’ve started to taxi.
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