Fintan O’Toole: Brexit Plan B is mash-up of ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘Mad Max’

Given the trouble British industry is facing, I am happy to offer a sure-fire winner to its entrepreneurs. There is bound to be a huge market in T-shirts, posters, mugs, pillowcases, postcards, and perhaps even tattoos imprinted with a Tudor crown and the words in white capitals on a red background: KEEP HYSTERICAL AND CARRY ON.

The original poster, issued in 1939 by the Ministry of Information as part of its preparations for an impending world war, was revived ironically in recent decades, and perhaps its appeal as an affectionate parody of the traditional English virtues of composure and resilience should have been a warning. The only stiff upper lips on display in England now belong to the victims of botched Botox jobs.

Theresa May's government drew up contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit to put the fear of God into the damned Europeans

Admittedly, my idea has been slightly pre-empted by the Royal Mail. In one of those co-incidences that you couldn't make up, it issued in June a set of stamps to mark the 50th anniversary of the first screening of the long-running and perennially popular wartime sitcom Dad's Army. One of them has the catchphrase "Don't Panic! Don't Panic!" printed on a still from the series of Clive Dunn's elderly Home Guard soldier, Lance Corporal Jones, mouth agape, glasses askew and, of course, in an awful funk. Here in a single mass-produced image is a masterly summary Britain's current Plan B for Brexit.

Theresa May's government drew up contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit to put the fear of God into the damned Europeans. They would show the Brussels bullies just who they were dealing with – a people famed for their infinite stoicism who will eat rats in dark cold cellars before they agree to be enslaved like, um, Norway.

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And when the British government looked at these contingency plans, they scared themselves so badly that they decided they must not be published after all. As Oscar Wilde said of the death of Little Nell in Charles Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. The effigy created to frighten the notoriously lily-livered continentals into acknowledging the God-given British right to eat cake and have cake has turned back on its makers and made them cringe in terror.

‘Don’t panic!’

One minister explained the core of the plan to the Sunday Times: "You would have to use all your services to provide essential supplies to people. The elderly and vulnerable would be in a difficult position. It would be the end of March (when Brexit happens) but it might still be cold. You've got to think about the energy supply and keeping the lights on." Another source explained indelicately why the actual contingency plan cannot be shown to the British people after all: "People will s**t themselves and think they want a new referendum or an election or think the Tory party shouldn't govern again." Or: here is a special broadcast by the minister for contingency planning, Lance Corporal Jones – "Stockpile Spam! Armed forces surround Tesco! Stockpile candles! Stockpile paraffin! Cut down those cherry trees for firewood! Arrest saboteurs! Don't panic! Don't panic!"

An academic report says that for the UK to export food to the US as an alternative to the EU, it would require a vast food flotilla and logistics operation exceeding that of the 1940-45 Atlantic convoys

In this national nervous breakdown, a peacetime country is dreaming itself back into its finest hour. A major academic report published last week, Feeding Britain: Food Security after Brexit, deals with what it would take for the UK to export food to the United States as an alternative to its current trade with the EU: it "would require a vast food flotilla and logistics operation exceeding that of the 1940-45 Atlantic convoys". Never mind the practicalities of this – how on earth did the second World War Atlantic convoys become part not of the British past but of a feverish vision of its possible future?

Tragedy and farce

According to Karl Marx everything in history is supposed to happen twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, but when we step through the Brexit looking glass we find something much stranger. The British, in their own heads, long ago replayed the second World War's tragedy as farce – what other culture could have not only produced Dad's Army but lapped up the jaw-dropping French Resistance saucy sitcom 'Allo, 'Allo! that ran for 85 episodes in the 1980s and 1990s. But if you've already turned tragedy into farce, what do you turn the farce into? As it happens, you turn it into public policy. In Plan B Brexit, nostalgia for wartime morphs into a weird mash-up of Dad's Army and Mad Max. Who do you think you are kidding Monsieur Barnier/We're preparing to kill each other for a can of Spam.

The British, in their own heads, long ago replayed the second World War's tragedy as farce

It’s all at once deadly serious and gloriously camp in that self-dramatising stroppy manner that kids can adopt when they’re not getting their way, making a big performance out of starving themselves because you won’t let them eat ice cream before their dinner. I’ll die of hunger and then you’ll be sorry but it will be too late and I’ll look down at you crying at my funeral and I’ll laugh at you. As a negotiating strategy, this seldom works for kids. It is probably not a great move in international talks either, especially when everyone can hear the rising notes in the voice behind it: Don’t panic! Don’t panic!