Memo: Chaos awaits no-deal Brexit
LONDON — Britain’s Cabinet office has warned top U.K. officials that exiting the European Union without a deal will wreak havoc, according to classified government documents leaked to a British newspaper.
Under an increasingly likely “no-deal” Brexit, food and social-care prices would rise, while medical supplies could face severe delays because most of Britain’s medicines come through English Channel crossings, the Sunday Times says the documents indicate.
Border delays would interrupt fuel supplies. Ports would only partially recover after three months of severe disruptions, leaving traffic at 50 to 70 percent of the current flow.
Those are just a few of the effects predicted by “Operation Yellowhammer,” which the London-based paper says was compiled this month and available to those with security clearances on a “need to know” basis.
The leak comes as Brexit critics warn that crashing out of the EU without an agreement will damage the British economy, devalue its currency and create instability. British leaders have sought unsuccessfully since the divisive 2016 Brexit vote to negotiate and pass a “divorce” plan.
Newly elected Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a leading voice in the Brexit movement, has promised to get his country out of the EU — deal or no deal — within his first 100 days in office and said a redo of the 2016 independence vote would undercut public faith in the country’s democracy.
The Yellowhammer documents provide a sobering view of what Johnson’s plan could mean for Britain.
According to the Times, they predict the need to restore a “hard border” with limited, controlled crossing points in Ireland, which could cause protests and block roads. Johnson has maintained that a “can-do spirit” can help avert such a change. But the Yellowhammer findings anticipate that measures to avoid a hard border will probably “prove unsustainable.”
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, tweeted that Ireland was “respectful” of Britain’s decision to leave the EU but reiterated Ireland’s position that a hard border between the Republic of Ireland, which is in the EU, and Northern Ireland, which is in the U.K., “must be avoided.”
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently said there would be “no chance” of Congress approving a U.S.-U.K. trade deal after Brexit if it undermined the Good Friday Agreement that helped bring peace to the region.
The documents say tariffs on gas imports could close two oil refineries, cause the loss of 2,000 jobs and further disrupt fuel supplies.
The litany of anticipated effects also includes delays at airports and protests around the country that would exhaust police resources.
The memo warns that some businesses will halt trade to avoid tariffs, while others that keep trading will pass higher costs on to customers.
They say the agriculture industry “will be the hardest hit, given its reliance on highly integrated cross-border supply chains” and high trade barriers.
And the black market could grow, especially in “border communities.”
With hopes for a plan to ease Britain’s departure by Johnson’s deadline, the government has been secretly preparing for the fallout, according to the Times.
But the leaked documents say Britain is mostly unprepared amid “EU exit fatigue” after the country missed a planned departure date in March, according to the paper.
Michael Gove, a senior lawmaker in the ruling Conservative Party who is effectively in charge of planning for a no-deal Brexit, told the BBC that the documents were “old” and detailed “worst-case” scenarios.
“The government has taken significant additional steps to ensure we are prepared to leave on October 31st, deal or no deal,” he said.
But the Times cites a senior government source as saying that the Yellowhammer findings present not a worst-case scenario but a “most realistic assessment of what the public face with no deal.”
“This is not Project Fear,” the government source was quoted by the Times as saying.