PROJECT FEAR ON SPEED

Whitehall accused of hysteria as report claims No Deal could cause fuel, food and medicine crisis

WHITEHALL warnings that a no-deal Brexit could lead to crippling shortages of food, fuel and medicine were described as ‘Project Fear on speed’ last night.

A leaked Whitehall assessment predicts a ‘Doomsday Brexit’ if the UK leaves the EU without a deal next year.

A source said it anticipates that the port of Dover would ‘collapse on day one’, adding: ‘The supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food in a couple of days, and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks.’

The source said there was nothing the UK could do if France or other EU countries decided to impose draconian restrictions at the border in the event of a no-deal departure, telling The Sunday Times: ‘If, for whatever reason, Europe decides to slow down (the supply of goods), then we’re screwed,’.

The analysis looked at three scenarios – mild, severe and one dubbed ‘armageddon’.

But the Department for Exiting the EU, whose officials are said to have drawn up the analysis, disowned the warning last night.

A senior source at the department described the claims as ‘hysterical’, adding: ‘We have wide-ranging plans for contingencies and we are confident the events described are implausible.’

Senior Brexiteers also rubbished the warnings. Jacob Rees-Mogg said there was no reason why a no- deal Brexit should cause shortages unless the UK decided to impose onerous border controls. He added: ‘We would be free to import food, medicines, fuel etc as we wished and the EU could only stop this if it were to impose sanctions, which is not a credible thought. Except in limited fields, such as arms sales, an exporting nation, in the absence of sanctions, has no legal mechanism to obstruct trade. Hence the Whitehall document is Project Fear on speed.’ Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said some officials appeared to be ‘frozen in the headlights’, adding: ‘They should be planning for what happens if there is no deal, not scaring the pants off each other.

‘We need people with imagination and courage, not frightened rabbits.’

Fellow Tory Conor Burns said: ‘ Do the authors of these reports realise how supine and pathetic they make our country look to the rest of the world?

‘The group-think of the last 45 years makes too many incapable of seeing that the EU is not the cause of all good.’

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said he did not recognise the ‘doomsday’ scenarios.

He told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 yesterday: ‘I don’t recognise any bit of that at all, and as Home Secretary I am deeply involved in “no-deal preparations” as much as I am in getting a deal. ‘I’m confident we will get a deal. ‘From the work I have seen and the analysis that has been done, those outcomes... I don’t think any of them would come to pass.’

Meanwhile, DUP leader Arlene Foster gave her clearest warning yesterday that she would withdraw support from Theresa May’s minority government if ministers tried to push through a Brexit deal that left Northern Ireland with a different status to the rest of the UK. It emerged last week that ministers have considered proposals to give Northern Ireland a ‘special status’ to let EU and British regulations on goods operate side by side.

Mrs Foster told Sky News: ‘For us, our only red line is that we are not treated any different from the rest of the United Kingdom, that there are no trade barriers put up between Northern Ireland and our biggest market which, of course, is Great Britain.

‘That’s what we will judge all of the propositions that are brought forward. I have confidence that she knows she cannot bring forward anything that will breach that red line or we will not be able to support them.’

Britain should continue to align itself with EU rules on goods exports, according to a report out today, backed by Brexit supporter Lord Lamont.

The Open Europe think-tank urges ministers to adopt a twin-track approach to future trade with Europe, in which manufacturers would continue to follow EU rules while the services sector would go it alone.

In its foreword, former Tory chancellor Lord Lamont says many manufacturers ‘will continue to make their products to European standards’, but Britain’s services sector, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of the economy, is ‘too important and globally-focused’ to be a rule-taker from the EU.

Lord Lamont said the twin-track approach ‘deserves consideration’ and could be better than leaving the EU without a deal.

The report says it is worth giving up some control over goods, arguing that in some highly regulated manufacturing industries, even US firms followed EU rules.

‘We need courage, not frightened rabbits’