Food, fuel and drug shortages: Leaked paper reveals no-deal Brexit fears
Britain faces shortages of food, medicine and fuel as well as civil unrest on the Irish border if it leaves the EU without a deal on 31 October, a leaked Whitehall document has revealed.
The document, codenamed Operation Yellowhammer, says the UK also faces months of disruption at ports, EU airports and at St Pancras, Eurotunnel and Dover. It predicts there will be rising costs to social care.
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The revelations, which were leaked to the Sunday Times, have emerged just before Boris Johnson prepares to meet the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, next week.
The Prime Minister has already had several phone conversations with EU leaders, including the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, in which he insisted that a new Brexit deal must be renegotiated, otherwise Britain will leave the bloc without a deal on 31 October.
One Whitehall source told the newspaper: “This is not Project Fear – this is the most realistic assessment of what the public will face with no deal. These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios – not the worst case”.
The dossier reveals that:
● The government expects the return of a hard border in Ireland as plans to avoid checks will prove “unsustainable”, risking protests
● There could be months of border delays that could lead to shortages of fuel affecting London and the south east
● Disruption at ports is expected to last for up to three months before the flow of traffic “improves” to 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the current rate
● The imposition of petrol import tariffs, which the government has set at 0 per cent, could lead to the closure of two oil refineries and 2,000 job losses, industrial unrest and disruptions to fuel supply
● There will be passenger delays at EU airports, St Pancras, Eurotunnel and Dover
● Medical supplies will “be vulnerable to severe extended delays”
● Fresh food supplies will be reduced, leading to higher prices
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● Police resources will need to quell protests across the UK protests across the UK, which may “require significant amounts of police resource[s]”
● Gibraltar will face delays of more than four hours at the border with Spain
Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng dismissed the Operation Yellowhammer revelations as “scaremongering”.
“‘A lot of people are playing into project fear and all the rest of it,” he told Sky News.
A Downing Street spokesperson said it did not comment on leaked documents.