If riots erupt, saving queen is top priority
Should Britain LONDON — stumble out of the European Union without a deal and riots erupt in the streets, officials have a plan:
Evacuate Queen Elizabeth II from London, local news outlets reported Sunday.
Reports of a scenario to save the queen and senior members of her familycame to light as the deadline for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union loomed. With fewer than 55 days until the formal divorce, now set for March 29, the country has been flooded with news of emergency preparations in the event no deal is reached.
Reports of Britons stockpiling groceries, medicines and other supplies have proliferated. Nissan Motor, the automobile giant, confirmed Sunday that it would manufacture the new version of its X-Trail SUV in Japan instead of Sunderland, in northeast England, where Nissan has been making cars since 1986.
Sony, the Japanese corporation, announced in January that it would move its European headquarters to Amsterdam from Surrey; Airbus and Bentley called the prospect of a no-deal Brexit a “killer” and a “disgrace.”
But the report of an emergency exit plan for the 92-year-old monarch gave a different weight to the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said Sunday, “We’re not commenting on that at all.”
But according to The Sunday Times, such plans were originally laid out long ago in anticipation of events that might threaten the royal family’s safety.
“These emergency evacuation plans have been in existence since the Cold War, but have now been repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit,” the British newspaper quoted an unidentified Cabinet Office official as saying.
In a reflection of the deeply polarized mood that has prevailed in Britain since the 2016 referendum on the country’s withdrawal from the European Union, the report of the evacuation plans for the queen was received with equal measures of worry and ridicule.
Many questioned the premise of preparing for riots immediately after the Brexit deadline, and whether Buckingham Palace, or the queen, would be the target of the public’s ire in the case of no deal.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Conservative lawmaker who has been arguing for a no-deal Brexit, told The Mail on Sunday that the evacuation plan was a “wartime fantasy.”
Kevin Featherstone, a professor of European politics at the London School of Economics, disputed fears of riots.
“Britain is already bitterly divided over Brexit, and more than it has been on anything for generations,” Featherstone wrote in an email Sunday. “But talk of riots in the streets is misconceived,” he said.
He added that Brexit had to do with identity politics, not economics. And riots would not start over whether Britain would end up with a Canada- or Norway-type deal, he said. (Though Norway is not a member of the European Union, it is part of the single market; Canada also has trade ties with the bloc.)
But the Brexit process has become so chaotic that even Queen Elizabeth, who has a constitutional obligation to remain neutral on political matters, made an appeal for harmony. In a speech on Jan. 25, the monarch made a plea for “respecting different points of view” and “coming together to seek out the common ground.”
The evacuation plan has a no-deal Brexit as a prerequisite, so it could be abandoned if May is able to negotiate a deal with Brussels this month.
If not, all bets are off.