Lorry

This week’s Brexit breakthrough (not one of the B words Scottish fisherman were using) was supposed to provide some clarity. A transition period until the end of 2020 will, hope negotiators, save us from that dreaded cliff edge, or rather postpone it for 18 months.

But businesses aren’t hanging around for politicians to save them from the drop. They are already considering measures of their own to cope with the Brexit fallout.

The Grocer’s revelation that suppliers are planning to stockpile up to six months’ worth of their products, in warehouses at home and abroad, to avoid the potential of a 40-mile car park at Dover, is a sign of just how much uncertainty still rules.

It’s a tribute to the entrepreneurial nature of companies, but also a sure sign of how far the government has to go to provide reassurance.

The stockpiling plans have been compared to the panic before the Y2K problem, or Millennium Bug, which turned out to be a false alarm.

If only we could say with any confidence that fears of Brexit chaos will be the same.

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