A GREAT deal of what we used to take for granted has now changed – thanks to the madhouse of Brexit.

Most of us have probably never even considered the possibility that there might not be shelves heaving with food in our supermarkets or chemists stocked with much-needed medicine. Until very recently that is, when reputable predictions indicated emergency food and pharmaceutical shortages within a year of Brexit.

We know the NHS is under pressure and badly in need of more funding but, pre-June 2016, we still thought we’d have access to some of the best healthcare on the planet for the foreseeable future thanks to some canny investment by the Scottish Government and courtesy of the tax we pay to preserve this most wonderful of institutions. Now it looks like, post March next year, you’d better hope you don’t get a major illness or require urgent specialist care for any reason unless you trust Richard Branson’s new Virgin team to fix it for you privately but without access to important medical imports or experienced healthcare professionals from the EU.

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We never thought we’d hear journalists in the UK praise dictators and the way “they get things done”, never mind an American president echo this refrain. We hoped that neo-Nazis were, if not a thing of the past, then at least a tiny minority, kept in check by the lessons of history and the better nature of most humans on the planet. We didn’t expect to turn on our TVs and watch the alt-right creep into our mainstream debates, worming their way into our living rooms, kitchens and commuting space with their divisive and corrosive rhetoric, unchallenged or underestimated by presenters and editors with enough professional experience to know better.

We thought we were moving ever forward on rights for minorities, on protections against discrimination and racism, on gender equality, on disability rights. We expected the UK Government to echo this progression and fight for human rights, not resort to gutter press articles mocking people’s expression of their faith, insult religious groups, ridicule people for their sexual orientation or use outright racist language to talk about huge swathes of the population.

All this and more the Tories stand accused of, from some of their MPs right through to their Tory councillors and even a lord provost. And, in Labour’s case, they tangle their party in knots over their failure to deal with accusations of anti-Semitism and their leader’s bizarre refusal to challenge Brexit. This has allowed one of the worst governments in history to take a 4% lead in some opinion polls. More on Labour’s abject failure another week. For now, it’s the Tories, past and present, who are under much-needed scrutiny.

Because, here we stand, 25 months on from the EU referendum, watching traditional British values crumble faster than the stonework on Big Ben. Mutual respect and tolerance, the rule of law, individual liberty and democracy, all under threat as we struggle to sort the truth from misinformation and a squalid “us and them” narrative. This is the new “normal” thanks to the political incompetence of the current UK Government, riddled with stasis, division, and subjective idealism on the big questions of the day.

Boris Johnson’s Brexit unicorn, Liam Fox’s imaginary trade deals, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Latin evocations, and Theresa May’s meaningless “Brexit means Brexit” mantra. Never has a government been so lacking in creative vision, strategic planning or political foresight. Never has so miserable a vision ever been proffered to the people of a nation – well not at least since the last Tory government.

This month, the pound dropped to a near all-time low through fears over a no-deal Brexit, while food bank usage figures went through the roof as families struggled to feed their children over the summer holidays, showing just how hard Tory austerity has hit. This summer will also be noted for scandalous headlines on the full extent of cheating by the Vote Leave campaign. Remember this shabby outfit featured prominent Cabinet members in its ranks but stands accused of using dark ads of dubious veracity and illegally harvested data to microtarget people’s deepest subjective fears and paranoias. Meanwhile, the Scottish Tories continue to try to dodge questioning on allegations of dark money funding their election campaigns. It’s like one giant pantomime, where all the main characters are villains, with the good guys and girls voiceless in the wings. And it makes for grim reading and even grimmer living. The reality is even worse for many people trying to navigate the unholy mess made by the UK Government, with policies deliberately targeting all but the already rich and privileged in our society, and a blind eye turned to manipulation of the truth.

Last week, new research published by the University of Warwick showed a direct link between austerity and the way people voted on leaving the EU. In its conclusion it noted that welfare cuts such as the bedroom tax, brought in by the Tory-LibDem coalition government formed in 2010, were a major factor behind increased support for Ukip in the run-up to the EU referendum, as well as contributing to a rise in favour of anti-establishment and Eurosceptic voting choices by those most affected by these cruel reforms.

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This noteworthy piece of research only got lip service in the mainstream press but it’s interesting for many reasons, not least because the main architect of austerity was George Osborne, an ardent Remainer during the referendum campaign along with his colleague and good chum Prime Minster David Cameron, who decided to call the vote in the first place. More incompetence, more short-sighted and visionless policy, with long-term negative effects for the kinds of people these two will likely only ever shake hands with during photo ops, before they slink back to their opulent houses and early inheritances. Brexit will only bruise their egos while the rest of us pick up the final demand notice.

Is it not time for a collective resolve of cool calm appraisal? Scotland is a rational nation. Let us get out of this very British bedlam.