The EU referendum is now imminent but the campaign on both sides of the debate has been characterised by mass confusion. It seems that no one really knows what the future holds, regardless of whether we stay or whether we leave. However, if predictions were to be made, here’s one hypothetical forecast of events to come if Britain were to go it alone.

We’re told that we need to leave the EU in order to curb immigration and that, if we do, we’ll all be richer, safer, and happier. However, regardless of what we choose, the camps in Calais aren’t going anywhere and the queue of immigrants which stretches across Europe is going to keep on marching in our direction. Since the Brexit camp say we’re going to have so much more money, the fact that we will no longer be a member of the EU isn’t going to stop anyone from wanting to come here for a better life. The only problem is, far more will come illegally rather than as refugees under EU free travel rules.

Since illegal immigrants can’t get a legal job, many will be forced to either resort to crime to survive (resulting in high crime rates and a prison system full of prisoners awaiting deportation) or they will work off the books, cash in hand, for less than minimum wage, paying no tax. Unemployment will rise, wages will be pushed down, and public services will become overstretched. The mood of our indigenous population will inevitably decline but their anger is unlikely to be aimed at the politicians who have the power to change things, instead targeted towards the immigrants themselves who simply wanted to build a better life. Eventually the country will become heavily divided along lines of ethnicity.

Since David Cameron has already confirmed that he will be leaving office before the next election, we will not have an opportunity to vote for the next prime minister. If, by then, we have left the EU, Cameron’s successor is sure to be chosen from among the Brexit camp and in all likelihood it will end up being Boris Johnson. Meanwhile, across the pond, the Americans are proving that they might just be crazy enough to elect Boris’s bad hair twin, Donald Trump. Of course, President Trump will remain unconvinced by Barak Obama’s recent naysaying and he will gladly embrace a loose-ended Britain, recently divorced from our European partners. The UK will be treated even more like a 51st state than ever and, with the circus clown double act that is BoJo and Trump proclaiming themselves leaders of the free world, our allies couldn’t possibly be blamed for wanting to take a step back from us.

In times like these our nuclear deterrent will become an ever more crucial necessity, but we won’t be able to keep subs in the Clyde anymore. Sturgeon the brave and her SNP army will no doubt respond to our leaving Europe by holding another referendum on Scottish independence and, since the last one was so close, the change in political geography is more likely than not to push the polls over that golden 50% line and hail the separation of our nation along the length of Hadrian’s wall. The People’s Republic of Scotland, never keen on nuclear power or weaponry, will cast Britain’s submarines out to be housed south of the border, most likely in Portsmouth, Liverpool, and Gateshead. The Thames will have been considered of course, but with Boris Island being greenlighted by our new (and completely impartial) Prime Minister, they’ll be no room left.

Still, since the EU has already thrown doubt upon their plans for TTIP (the Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), the idea may well be redrafted as a US/UK deal. On the other hand, objections to TTIP include the fact that it gives private companies the right to sue any government which makes decisions that compromise their ability to turnover an obscene profit. Any attempt to replace the current European rules (which will no longer apply to us) with British regulation of any kind will doubtlessly be opposed by big business and, before we know it, our greenbelt will be full of Chinese nuclear power plants and US funded Fracking stations, both unhindered by such things as “health and safety” and “workers’ rights” – relics of antiquated law. The Chinese will consider it perfectly acceptable to bury nuclear waste directly under our high speed 2 rail lines and the Americans will deny that there is any problem with fracking at all, even as the ground opens up releasing extreme levels of radiation and waste, corroding the rail lines, and sending a bullet train straight off the tracks and into the nearest nuclear reactor. Cue the ultimate Chernobyl/Fukushima disaster and a mushroom cloud over Norwich.

Trigger Happy Trump will be straight on the phone to Bonkers Boris, blaming the explosion on a nuclear strike of some kind, and it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll pin it on Muslims or Mexicans. Given the similar complexions of Arabs and Latinos it isn’t even clear whether President Trump knows the difference, but he’ll be more than happy to support Britain in striking back at both. When asked where he got his information from Trump will reveal that it all came from the man on a fast food stand in Times Square who sells everything from falafel to burritos (and therefore must have inside knowledge of both cultures). Ordinarily, state intelligence services would treat such sources with the utmost scepticism but, since Tony Blair led us to war on the basis of gossip from a taxi driver, the precedent has already been set. Blair himself will be reeling in the wake of the recently published Chilcott report and will take this opportunity to blame the nuclear explosion on those dastardly weapons of mass destruction which, somehow, must have finally turned up in the hands of Islamic State.

Our NATO allies and European neighbours will watch in horror as Boris announces that his solution to Britain’s problems is World War Three. Record breaking unemployment and an overcrowded prison system will be dealt with by conscripting all violent offenders to train anyone who has been out of work for longer than a month in how to fight. Get convicted of a gun crime and you’re immediately made an officer. Boris Island will then be used as a base of operations from where our sons and daughters will be flown out to take on everyone from ISIS to the Incas. However, in true Tory fashion, Boris will have neglected to make provision for the disabled and all those who are simply unable to work will find themselves issued with rifles and fatigues. It won’t be long before we have wheelchair bound soldiers being sent out on board adapted nuclear bombers to parachute out even as the bombs are released. They’re meant to be surgical strikes of course, but with Britain’s economy floundering in the wake of the Norwich Nuke the military will have subcontracted these flights to RyanAir who can only guarantee that the bombs will land close enough to be taken to their intended target by coach.

Meanwhile, Boris will have completely forgotten about the rise in illegal immigrants. Without access to the database of European arrest warrants we’ll have no way of knowing who has made it to our shores or what their agendas might be. The small percentage of them with murderous intent will seize the opportunity presented by a country which has lost all it’s men and women of fighting age and infiltrate the abandoned Norwich nuclear power plant, stealing the plutonium and weaponising it for use on our own capital. Unfortunately, Prime Minister BoJo buys into the idea of an eye for an eye and, as London burns, orders will be be sent out to the subs stationed in our major ports to take the Jean-Charles De Menenez approach. They will target nuclear warheads at any area found to contain a high population of people who “look a bit foreign”. The only problem is, the immigrants live in British cities and it is there that our missiles will land, wiping Bradford, Birmingham, and Bristol clean off the map.

By now the US will be our only remaining ally and Donald Trump will assume that the North Koreans have somehow hacked into our defence systems and taken control over our nuclear arsenal, turning it back on us. Fearing that the next wave of missiles may well cross the Atlantic, he will immediately authorise a pre-emptive strike and incinerate Portsmouth, Liverpool, and Gateshead, destroying our nuclear submarines, and the cities along with them.

As nuclear fallout spreads across the land our only remaining option will be to abandon ship. We’ll all run for the channel tunnel and beg the French to let us out on the other side so that we can live as refugees in the Jungle camp in Calais. It will be us who are the immigrants, and we’ll be in Europe regardless of how we voted. We still won’t be able to stand the French telling us what to do though, even in France, but that won’t matter for long because, as a last act of friendship, symbolic of our “special relationship”, Donald Trump will give us his blue prints and we’ll build a wall. Walls solve everything after all and how hard can it be to convince the rest of the world that Brittany was always part of Britain anyway? Once that’s all sorted the only thing we’ll have left to worry about is the looming zombie apocalypse, but that’ll be dealt with from Brussels.