No-deal Brexit looks set to spark another scandal, leaving thousands of EU citizens stateless

The contrast could hardly have been more stark, or poignant. Some days ago, Mark Francois, an excitable member of the Spartans, a band of all-out Tory Brexiteers, wrote a cheeky, pugnacious “missive from a free country” to the European Union’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. Mr Francois was demanding that the EU lives up to its moral obligations and withdraws its “unreasonable demands” for a new trade deal.

Now Mr Barnier, cool, logical, elegant in speech and manner, has responded, in English. In as polite but dry manner as he can, Mr Barnier merely pointed out that the broad agreement on the “level playing field” and fisheries was contained in the UK-EU Political Declaration that Mr Francois had himself voted for only a few months ago. Mr Barnier thus found himself explaining to Mr Francois what his own party’s policy is. Mr Francois seems not to be overly concerned about the “billet-doux” from Brussels.

All very jolly, but as the formal deadline to request an extension to these failing talks passes, more serious matters emerge. Neither the British negotiator nor Mr Barnier make much attempt to pretend that the early end to the current round of discussions is anything other than a breakdown. They have not broken up early because the work has been completed early, but because the two sides are so far apart that there is no point in meeting. A no-deal Brexit seems inevitable, and the suspicion is that the British don’t mind it.

Brussels has pointed out what this means for the quotidian perks that British citizens visiting the EU used to take for granted. There will be “thorough” personal checks at airports and ferry terminals; there will be EU-wide recognition of the UK driving licence; pets will undergo quarantine. The EU, reluctantly, will impose tariffs and controls. If need be, there could be punitive import taxes to counter dumping or low-wage social dumping. British finance will see its market access gradually withdrawn. British business will lose markets and jobs will go – all on top of a post-coronavirus recession. The light touch the British will apply to EU imports will not be reciprocated. Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, is telling her colleagues that Britain won’t even have a border regime that complied with World Trade Organisation rules. The much-contested new border between Britain and Northern Ireland will be the least of Britain’s worries. Kent will be converted into a vast and rather chilly lorry park come New Year’s Day 2021.

To borrow a phrase, this is not the Brexit British people voted for.

It could turn even nastier. One of the major concerns on the part of the EU, and especially the European parliament, is the continuing rights and security of EU citizens living and working in Britain. As our reporting of disturbing trends in the settlement statistics suggests, more EU nationals are being refused the right to stay in the UK. There is in this process the potential for a new Windrush-type scandal. When the Home Office bureaucracy finally runs out of time by the legal deadline next summer, the chances are that thousands of EU citizens will be in a form of statelessness, eligible for forced deportation. This is something that the EU, acting together, will not tolerate and will retaliate over – as British expats in Spain and elsewhere will learn to their cost.

In other words, what was supposed to be the easiest trade deal in history is slowly but inexorably sliding into a kind of cold war between the EU and the UK. The comic opera exchange of provocations between Mr Francois and Mr Barnier seems the precursor to a much more vicious and damaging war of words and of economics.