Maybe Brexit without agreement is catastrophic, can be, in fact it is very probable, that a solution will be found at the last moment. But why paint it as a crazy action, scripted, what would be the consequence of the referendum vote of 2016? In which the constituent power of the majority of the English people expressed itself.

The reality is that since 2016 Continental Europe understood little or nothing of what had happened. How this was not understood in Italy: suffice it to say, in journalism, the only serious book was Brexit is neither a challenge, cared for by Daniele Capezzone and Federico Punzi (of which a new e-book edition has now been released, always for the Jubilee editions). Not to mention the disheartening debate in mainstream newspapers.
And then of course the EU, its management team, and that of its governments, they understood even less. What they didn't understand? The story. That is, Brexit is not a sudden bolt of lightning but is a phenomenon that can be easily framed in English history and tradition. It is no coincidence that so many historians are leading the pro-Brexit front, among all Robert Tombs of Cambridge and Alan Spoon della London School of Economics, one of the founders of UKIP. And another historian, Brendan Simms, also at Cambridge, it is the one that best described the long centuries-old relationship between England and Europe understood as a continent. It would have been enough for Juncker and Barnier to read his book, Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation, to understand a little more. But they won't have had time: too busy checking dossiers and attending briefings.
An eventuality no deal brexit, which perhaps wouldn't be as catastrophic as painted, also because it is accompanied by subsequent single chords, it would however mark yet another cultural failure of the EU. Not random. The EU cannot understand Brexit as a product of a history and a tradition because the EU does not think in terms of history and tradition. For the EU, tradition does not exist or if it exists it must be eradicated. As for the story, EU ideologists make it start in 1957, while they manipulate the previous one, in such a way as to make the advent of "integration" similar to that of the kingdom of heaven. A religious mentality, but secularized, that of the EU, could only clash with the English one: That, despite it all, still retains a link with history and tradition. E, if it gives me a lot, I have the impression that the English, who have never lost a war, they won't lose this either.
Marco Gervasoni, 1 February 2019