AMONG the numerous questions posed by Brexit is one few expected back in 2016. Namely, what does it mean to be patriotic as we lurch towards no-deal?

For millions of people who voted to leave the EU the answer remains simple. They voted to take back control, for national sovereignty, for Britain to stand on its own two feet, free from the shackles of Brussels. They voted for elected MPs in Parliament to be the final determiner of what happens in this country. Many voted for Leave to get a stronger grip on migration into the UK.

A great many, it has been argued, were making a protest against the way “the establishment” neglected their communities and imposed austerity, especially after the bankers’ bailouts of 2009. By this reckoning, Brexit was actually a demand for help, not a kamikaze desire to impoverish your own family and neighbours.

For millions of people who placed their cross by Remain, the opposite is true. For them, no-deal Brexit is deeply unpatriotic because it threatens the welfare and well-being of the vast majority of our citizens, and risks tearing the United Kingdom apart. Most Remainers would point to the essential role played by immigrants in building Britain over hundreds of years, arguing that managed migration is a positive thing. Look at how our NHS would collapse without EU workers, they say, not to mention the massive damage to food production and agriculture.

Perhaps all the above is just theory. However, as we get closer and closer to no-deal on 31st October, the real world will inevitably take over. And reality can be a harsh teacher.

Take Operation Yellowhammer, the government’s secret internal report on the probable effects of a no-deal Brexit, leaked last week. In a chilling example of Trumpian, Putin-style media spin, the government immediately tried to manage people’s reaction by rejecting their own report as “Project Fear”.

It is not hard to see why super-ambitious no-deal politicians were alarmed. Operation Yellowhammer painted a picture of deep national self-harm: chaotic disruption to cross-Channel trade; passenger delays as the EU ramps up border checks; shortages of medicines manufactured in the EU; shortages of fresh food and a hike in prices; huge uncertainty in Ireland that would inevitably affect the crucial Good Friday Agreement.

Other commentators have pointed to jobs already relocating to Europe and lasting damage to our financial services industry, as well as on-going reductions to the value of the pound. Hardly the ‘sunlit uplands’ promised by Boris Johnson during the referendum.

Many ardent Leavers I have met acknowledge the process will damage the UK economically, but argue the problems will only be temporary. Sadly, when pressed, not one has explained convincingly to this writer, at least, why they assume the drawbacks of no-deal will be short lived. Or, indeed, what the actual advantages of no-deal are.

The key sentiment seems to be: I’m sick to death of Brexit. Let’s just get it over with.

If only life and international relations were so simple. The assumption that leaving with no-deal ends Brexit is completely false. As our export industries reeled from the effect of WTO tariffs, the great illusion of no-deal would become desperation for trade deals. And we would be negotiating from a position of historic weakness.

At that point I believe we would all wonder if those who drove us to such an uncertain situation were truly acting out of patriotic motives. The early beneficiaries would almost certainly be American pharmaceutical and health care companies insisting on looting our NHS, along with US food producers with lower standards of hygiene than the EU norm.

Long ago the great writer Dr Johnson wrote of another Prime Minister, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” For many of us who love our United Kingdom and wish it to be a land of diversity, prosperity, fairness, social equality and decency, the prospect of a no-deal Brexit is terrifying. It is easy to see how unscrupulous politicians could try to blame the resulting chaos on foreigners and, to use Boris Johnson’s phrase, Remainer “collaborators”. We must not let our country be conned into such a future of irrational self-hurt.