The doom-mongers are at it once again

Not even at its most scaremongering during the EU referendum campaign did the Remain side suggest the country would run out of food if voters decided to leave. Yet just weeks before a crucial summit in Brussels to agree post-brexit customs arrangements, so-called Project Fear has not only been revived but turbo-charged to suggest that disaster awaits if agreement is not achieved.

Contingency plans drawn up in Whitehall, whose details were leaked to a Sunday newspaper, say the UK would be hit with shortages of medicine, fuel and food within a fortnight if it tried to leave without a deal. This doomsday scenario says that the port of Dover would collapse “on day one”. The military would have to be called up to transport supplies around the country. This is not even the worst case contemplated by officials. That has been dubbed “Armageddon”, though its details have not been forthcoming. Presumably it involves plagues of locusts and water turning to blood.

It is claimed that the plans – which assume, bizarrely, that EU countries would slow down the supply of food and medicine in the event of no deal – were produced for a ministerial group on Brexit preparedness. However, the question that arises is why officials have adopted such an apocalyptic approach. It is the Government’s job to ensure all is in place for continued operation of the country, whatever the outcome to the Brexit negotiations. If matters have been allowed to drift to such an extent that failure to achieve a deal would paralyse one of the world’s leading economies, it would mark the greatest dereliction of duty by any government in peacetime.

The Government’s stated policy is to achieve a deal that would ensure the UK and the EU remain on good terms beyond the transition period ending in December 2020. Ministers are confident this is achievable despite the evident difficulties over securing mutually acceptable customs arrangements on the island of Ireland. However, it is always conceivable that there will not be a deal. In that case, the UK must be ready and able to carry on like the vast majority of nation states which do not need EU membership to function normally.

Whitehall’s Brussels-fixated mandarins should stop planning for the worst and take measures now to protect the national interest from any potential disruption.