Steering and brakes should work even if there's no electricity.
And it surely can't disable brakes. It can disable ABS or force it to cycle, turn off power assist, and apply electric parking brake, but brake pedal is still connected to the brakes through some old school hydraulics.
The same applies for power assist - it's quite powerful; steering at high speed is possible but quite hard if it simply turns off; however, if it would be actively working against you (and do it suddenly without any warning), it's likely that you wouldn't be able to turn it back until you'd already smashed into the opposite lane.