If you walk up into the Welsh hills, four hours’ drive from the political storms of Westminster, there is the noisy sound of spring as usual — throngs of lambs bleating for their mothers as they tear across the fields. Across Britain, about 17 million lambs are born every year.
But if Britain crashes out of the European Union without a deal, nearly half of them might have to be slaughtered for lack of an export market, farmers have warned. The National Farmers Union has called for the government to offer massive financial compensation to avoid that.
A choice between huge numbers of dead lambs and huge payouts to sheep farmers is just one example of the turmoil that a no-deal Brexit could bring.