Like a military operation, the project to test how traffic might flow around southeast England in the event of a no-deal Brexit started before dawn. And like many a military operation, it ran into trouble soon after making contact with reality.

The Department for Transport had asked for between 100 and 150 trucks to assemble Monday morning at a disused airfield in Kent. In the event, 89 turned up.

Those that were there queued on the runway, waiting to be moved. In 2015, the pro-Brexit U.K. Independence Party proposed reopening Manston Airport, to help the local economy. This was probably not what they meant.