British super market
Credit: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty

Prospect magazine’s Jonathan Lis has a piece titled “36 things that will happen if Britain crashes out of Europe with no deal” that I, an American who has been casually but not obsessively following Brexit, found extremely helpful.

Let’s back up a second: In 2016, the British people narrowly voted to exit the European Union. British Prime Minister Theresa May has proposed maintaining a free trade deal with the EU after leaving, but hardliners in her party like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have strenuously objected, leaving it an open question whether she’ll remain in office or, if she does, whether Britain will be able to leave the EU with any kind of deal to cushion the blow.

So what happens if May leaves without that kind of deal? That’s what Lis’s piece addresses. Here’s one of its extremely normal paragraphs:

4. Food will rot. We import about half of our food and feed, and 70 per cent of that comes from the EU. […]