No-deal Brexit has suddenly gone serious. It is no longer an exercise in bombast and biceps-flexing. Boris Johnson is about to impose a massive economic sanction on his own country. He is playing with fire: it is a political stunt that has gone horribly wrong.

It is clearly reckless to assume a sensible Brexit deal before the due date of 31 October. Politicians can twiddle their thumbs, others cannot. Since March, the Tories decided collectively to stop working in the nation’s interest and play a game of chicken with Brussels. It has not worked. The government is now planning for crisis.

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The outlook is grim. The Institute for Government warns that there is no magic button, no “managed no deal”, to handle border chaos on 1 November. Emergency measures on trucks, plane flights, tourism and immigration will be entirely at the EU’s mercy – as the UK will, overnight, become legally a “foreign state”. We will need to be very nice to Brussels. Even current measures on financial services and aviation are strictly temporary. Rudimentary “technology checks” on truck movements will require a huge infrastructure of certificates, gantries and cameras, inspection depots and tariff collection points. None of this is remotely in place. Sixteen thousand officials will need to be set to work on it, and by October. This is impossible.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is proposing 200 measures to cover cross-Channel dealings. There’s an economic storm coming, in which we will “probably still lose the kitchen but might save the bedroom,” says CBI’s deputy boss, Josh Hardie. Vauxhall seems certain to move its Ellesmere Port plant to the EU. Thousands of jobs are certain to follow. Johnson, who should be frantically negotiating in Dublin or Brussels, is on an electioneering tour of Scotland and Wales. He mocks his prediction that no deal was “a million-to-one against”.

As for the idea of anyone “taking back control” of trade with the US, that is laughable

The irony of Brexit is that it will need a severe boost to the power and centrality of government. Northern Ireland must revert to being a direct-ruled British colony. As with regimes in all sanctioned economies, Johnson must retain popularity by throwing money at Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He will soon spend billions rescuing bankruptcy-threatened farming, steel and car makers. Britain will return to pre-single market nationalisation.

Brexiters may reasonably protest that some of this is exaggerated. As the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, embarrassingly showed on the BBC this morning, what they cannot do is point to any advantage. The latest Economist survey of Brexit models shows none that are medium-term positive, except one from pro-leavers that assumes no import tariffs at all, which is inconceivable. As for the idea of anyone “taking back control” of trade with the US, that is laughable. Somehow the essence of Theresa May’s transitional deal must be resurrected. That appears beyond the capacity, or the wish, of the present prime minister.

Abrupt departure from Europe’s entire economic community was never put to the referendum. It is not the will of the UK’s now spineless parliament. It became a talisman of internal Tory machismo. It is a sick joke which, in business, would constitute criminal negligence.

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist