“No-deal Brexit will not change anything.” It turns out when James Dyson said that last week, he was doing an impression of one of his aggressive hand-dryers – ie, loudly producing an unnecessary amount of hot air. Because this week, after years of campaigning to free the country from the shackles of the EU, Dyson announced that his new electric car would be built not in the sunlit uplands of post-Brexit Britain but Singapore. Dyson was quick to say that Brexit had absolutely nothing to do with the decision, instead claiming that Singapore was close to key markets and regional supply chains – unlike Britain, which is just about to slice off its access to key markets and regional supply chains due to that thing which has absolutely nothing to do with this decision.

Now, to be fair to Dyson – and that can be hard to do, given that he looks like an older, unironed version of Julian Assange – you could argue that this doesn’t represent a change from Dyson’s usual business practice. It tends to develop its vacuums and dryers in the UK and then manufacture them in Asia – which does mean that Dyson probably shouldn’t be claiming to speak for the thousands of British businesses that are hoping to manufacture in the UK after Brexit. It means that Dyson’s proclamation that a no-deal Brexit would change nothing might be true for him, but as a forecast for other businesses in the country it’s a bit like his products: it both sucks and blows.

Of course, Dyson is just the latest in a long list of leavers promising a glorious Brexit future while secretly making plans to cover themselves when the shit hits the Dyson AM06 high-velocity cooling fan with Air Multiplier™ technology. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the physical manifestation of the teacher from Bash Street if he also wanted to deny women autonomy over their own bodies, tells his Moggmentum fans about the benefits of leaving the EU, but his investment firm Somerset Capital seems less convinced: it recently started up an investment vehicle in Dublin to offset the “considerable uncertainty” as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

It seems like every three weeks we hear another one of these squalid stories of brazen Brexit hypocrisy

Similarly, the Tory MP John Redwood, who regularly screams online that leaving the EU will lead to better cake, like he’s some kind of Paul Hollywood-themed Brexit bot, in the chaos of Brexit quietly told UK investors last year to “look further afield”. And that’s before we even get to the Ukip contingent, squawking their usual nonsense like a set of nationalistic pigeons, all while surreptitiously moving their assets and residency abroad to shield themselves from the loss of rights bestowed by Brexit. Nigel Farage has secured German passports for two of his children, Arron Banks has stashed money in offshore accounts already and Andy Wigmore (the Howard Donald of the group) is apparently going to Belize, as a former diplomat and current citizen. You can’t blame Wigmore: if I had to choose a place for me to live out my life as a snivelling, opportunistic rat who cheated 60 million people out of a decent future and needed a place to hide, I guess I’d choose Belize too.

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None of this stuff is anything new – in fact, it seems like every three weeks we hear another one of these squalid stories of brazen Brexit hypocrisy. It’s as regular as a Trump scandal, a Mourinho outburst or an ITV detective drama starring John Simm as a sad policeman. The reason for this is that they’re not trying to hide it because they know there are no consequences for their hypocrisy. We’re still working on the assumption that these people can be shamed into changing – that once their blatant lies and self-interest see the light of day they’ll have no choice but to admit the error of their ways. We keep praying the other side will have some kind of great epiphany, where the sheer weight of evidence will flip them to the side of righteousness.

They won’t. They will keep calling the accusers biased, or in the pocket of the EU, or somehow compromised, and their supporters will lap it up because it’s easier to keep living a lie than admit you’ve been lied to by people you trusted. Until there are serious consequences for cashing in on the chaos you’ve helped to bring about, pointing out the hypocrisy of Dyson and their ilk is just more hot air.

• Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer