The many thousands of civil servants who, like me, work on no-deal Brexit preparations know that Twitter is increasingly a more reliable guide to what’s about to go down than anything our bamboozled civil service bosses pass on to us. This is partly the result of a prime minister whose showmanship has turned zombie and started gorging itself on our institutions, and partly the result of the fact that we just can’t seem to get enough of it. The conventions of political theatre – not proper risk management – are now ensorcelling hundreds more staff into Operation Yellowhammer, the government’s planning for a no-deal Brexit, as Michael Gove so portentously announced to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

The official reason we are given for this new phase is that the UK, thanks to its self-hating parliament, can’t be sure that the EU will grant a Brexit extension, thus making no deal more likely. But the real reason, of course, is to help to terrify craven MPs into voting for the deal by carrying out a pre-Halloween dress rehearsal of what no deal will actually feel like.

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There’s been plenty of martial metaphor used in relation to Brexit. It’s not exaggerated, Whitehall is already under siege: there have been bunkered ministerial meetings of the high-level exit operations committee, the scaling up of “operation centres”, and civil servants being “deployed” like paratroopers into enemy territory.

Ahead of yet another momentous week, my nerves are shot. Already this week, our team meetings have been led by sanguine but hollow-eyed senior civil servants who are (often in the same breath as reminding us to look after our mental health) instructing us – Blackadder-style – to go over the top. I slump in no-deal risk management meetings wondering when we will ever be brave enough to name the real risks to our sanity, never mind to the country.

Much of this Yellowhammer shtick is just for show. As a civil servant I’m angry about that – and so should you be. There’s a risk, though, of anger giving way to boredom. Even this week, the prime minister is counting on MPs just being too bored to scrutinise the dense legalese of the 110-page withdrawal agreement bill within three backbreaking days. They are, understandably, pushing back against being bounced into glossing over the fine print. And why not, when this kind of cynical expediency at any other critical juncture would horrify most people?

Righteous ire is needed right now, to ensure that vital lessons aren’t missed – particularly concerning value for money. The flawed logic of showmanship was what fuelled the chancellor’s multibillion no-deal spending announcement back in August. This was roundly condemned by Meg Hillier, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee, who said: “Just because Boris Johnson is making it sound like he’s fighting a war, with seven-days-a-week meetings in Whitehall, that is not licence to spend taxpayers’ money like water, throwing good money after bad.” I’m not an expert on the finer points of Johnson’s new deal, but it feels as if MPs are being gaslighted into congratulating him for the political equivalent of negotiating full price on a DFS sofa.

Heaven help us if no deal actually happens. Because, even with the best efforts of civil servants like me, Operation Yellowhammer won’t be enough, even with its enormous price tag. Not even close. And while – outrageously – there won’t be any economic analysis prepared by the government on the impact of the new deal, we already know – thanks to Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts – that the impact of no deal will make the £6.3bn spent this year on no-deal planning look like peanuts.

Civil servants have to perform their roles neutrally in order to be able to work with whoever is in government. That’s the job. But if I learned one thing from the Extinction Rebellion protesters who occupied most of Whitehall last week it’s that the impact of all of this will make us wish we had all got angrier sooner.

• The civil servant works in a Whitehall department and is currently part of Operation Yellowhammer