To stockpile food, medicine and petrol?

[Laudanumm]

So apparently we're now at very high risk of exiting the EU in March without a trade agreement with the EU. The government wanted to keep it secret, but it's been leaked that the middle of the 3 outcomes they're discussing, so not the bad one, is the port of Dover collapsing on day 1, immediate food shortages and almost immediate petrol and medicine shortages - as in, no food in the supermarkets. It's in the Sunday Times. AIBU to start stockpiling?

I was rather hoping that someone would come on the thread and tell me how its affected them dramatically

Dunno if it's dramatic. Consortium colleagues at other university got an extra year of funding (due to no civil servants available to assess our grant application at original expected renewal point, in March 2019), but my institution got shafted due to uneven allocation; we were shut out of funding for extra yr. Many of us will have to get new jobs next yr, so unlikely we'll come back to this consortium when it receives likely 5 yr renewal in 2020. Our multi-yr built-up expertise lost, extra expenses and insecurity personally, job roles may change hugely.

There's bad feeling within the consortium about who got the extra funding & who didn't. Hard when you still have to work with the people who got extra funding.

Many other tangible negative Brexit-linked things happening at work.

how many people honestly can say that their lives have radically and irrevocably changed since the Brexit vote? Ours has, we are considering leaving the UK with a one way ticket. Being in the UK is bad for trade, we are loosing money.

You should read this book www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Forgetting-Whale-John-Ironmonger/dp/1780227981?tag=mumsnetforum-21 for tips on how to stockpile food. And yes it goes extremely fast!

How on earth would it be in EUs (who is a net exporter to the uk) interests not to have a trade deal?

It is not in their interests. Brexit is not in their interests. It will make them poorer.
HOWEVER a block of 27 nations are better equipped to weather 1 nation going it alone, than that 1 nation is. We need the deal far far far far more than they do.
Such a deal will be nigh on impossible though - on account of the various red lines Theresa May has painted for herself. the more red lines she has, the less flexible we can be - the harder a deal will be.
If we leave the CM and SM then we must have a hard border between NI and ROI - it will be the EUs external border - our border with them. This means reneging on an international peace treaty and risking reigniting civil war in part of the UK.
The EU do not want that hard border. But they cannot compromise the safety and integrity of the single market for 27 members just because we don't want to play anymore. They are not going to rewrite their rules for the convenience of the nation walking out.
Now if Theresa May hadn't painted her red lines of insanity this would not be a problem. But she has. The EU will not betray Ireland and start negotiating a trade deal whilst the border question is unresolved. We cannot resolve the border without staying in the SM and the CM. If we don't start negotiating right now it will not be ready for October to be signed off by the member states. If it isn't signed off by October, then we will crash out in March - unless we are given a transition period. And at the moment that is not looking likely - we don't know what we want so what is the point?

Brexit is our tragedy - and we have to own the consequences. The EU may get spattered with blood when we shoot ourselves in the face, but they will survive. They won't survive, however, if they break apart their four fundamental freedoms and jeopardise the integrity of the SM. So there is absolutely no chance of them doing that for us - even if their budget will take a slight hit for a few years.

how many people honestly can say that their lives have radically and irrevocably changed since the Brexit vote?

Talk about blinkered? Have you read about all the agencies that are relocating to Europe? The European Medicines Agency all gone. Companies moving people to Ireland to France to Germany ... Companies moving manufacturing out of the UK?

My own team has suffered - we have two incredibly talented individuals - one Italian one Spanish - probably the most talented people in the team - completely irreplaceable and both leaving this month because of Brexit.

I read an article in the Times suggesting that the Home Office was considering releasing lots of criminals from prison early to cope with the Brexit exodus. Marvellous. That's not going to help my team.

how many people honestly can say that their lives have radically and irrevocably changed since the Brexit vote?

My dh's company lost a big contract 2 days after the vote directly as a result of the fact that the UK would no longer be in the EU. That has impacted on the firm's income stream and will probably lead eventually to redundancies.

how many people honestly can say that their lives have radically and irrevocably changed since the Brexit vote?

Mine has. It's caused complete family break down. I've had no communication with any of my family, even my mother, since the vote.

so tired of Britain’s media (the daily fail) trying to terrify us.

The daily mail is the most rabidly pro brexit rag there is out there (apart from maybe the express). This news is coming from The Sunday Times (also right wing and has been pro brexit). The information is coming from the civil servants whose job it is to know this stuff.
This is not the same as a pandemic that never materialised. And I have already pointed out that the Millenium bug was averted not non- existent.
Nothing is being done to avert brexit.
Sometimes it isn't scare mongering. Sometimes the truth is that awful.
But ignoring this because you don't like the scare mongering an *entirely different newspaper^ has done in the past actually beggars belief.

So first the Government is berated for not having plans, now its berated for having plans.

WingsofaDragonfly: Far from scaremongering, the Daily Fail have conned half of the population into thinking that the UK will be the land of plenty in 9 months time.

The Sunday Times article is based on the government's own analysis - which itself only confirms what experts have been saying since the referendum. Under normal circumstances the UK has a buffer stock of about 5-days worth of food. About half of all food consumed in the UK is imported. The half that the UK produces is largely picked, packed and processed by EU workers, who are about to go home. 35% of workers in the food and drinks industries are from the EU. 90% of vets in meat processing factories are from the EU. A similar situation exists for medicines, where the buffer is about two weeks. If people begin to stockpile in March then food will disappear from the shelves in a matter of hours.

If the UK walks away from the EU and cannot agree a deal by March, then there is real danger that food will run out in a matter of days. No imported food can enter the country, as the UK loses not only the UK-EU trade agreements, but also the 750 agreements that cover UK-Rest of World trade. Food shortages and rationing are very much a possibility.

I propose that it should be all Leave voters' patriotic duty to not prepare in the slightest, for any possible negative scenario. Show the universe how confident the True BeLeavers are that Brexit can only result in good, and more likely wondrous things - from Day 1. After all, anything but unrelenting positivity is lies/scaremongering/hysteria, isn't it?

So - Not a single grain of stockpiled rice, eat all food in the freezer, keep no tinned food, ensure car has empty petrol tank, no setting aside of savings or postponement of unnecessary expenditure, not holding so much as an extra tenner in cash.

OTOH, perhaps we could make an allowance for stockpiling of Union flag bunting for the great day.

Sounds fair? Courage of convictions and all that?

I was rather hoping that someone would come on the thread and tell me how its affected them dramatically because I know a fair few people in business, friends, acquaintances and so far haven't found anyone that can point to a tangible effect.

Before the vote my London house was rising in value. London was the world's greatest financial centre at the heart of the global recovery. I paid a lot of British tradesmen very good money to work on it, and gladly so, because it was an appreciating asset.
Now it's falling in value. I'd be fine with this if it meant younger working people could buy houses more easily. But they can't because the reason is because, like the UK, the whole London economy is less prosperous due to the huge uncertainty over its relationship with our biggest market. There are no winners and our rate of growth is the lowest in the G7. And as a result I'm not hiring tradesmen except for urgent repairs. Congratulations leave voters! And Brexit hasn't even happened yet..

Please don't stockpile petrol. If I think any of my neighbours are doing this i'll be straight on the phone to the police.

I still think Brexit is politically impossible and won't happen.

"Brexit is our tragedy - and we have to own the consequences. The EU may get spattered with blood when we shoot ourselves in the face, but they will survive. They won't survive, however, if they break apart their four fundamental freedoms and jeopardise the integrity of the SM. So there is absolutely no chance of them doing that for us - even if their budget will take a slight hit for a few years."

EXACTLY! I don't think we should even call these talks "negotiations". They are negotiations only in the way a three year old negotiates bed time.

@icantreach

But I am almost daring to hope that we are just about to seeing reversal on SM and CU. It seems like May has finally woken up to the realisation that within this time frame the only option is staying in the SM and CU, or no deal. Just as most of the "experts" said two years ago.

So first the Government is berated for not having plans, now its berated for having plans.

This isn't a plan, it's a prediction of what having no plan will result in. They still don't have any plans.

So first the Government is berated for not having plans, now its berated for having plans
What plans? permanent operation stack? That isn't a plan - not one the country can cope with.
Max Fac? The EU have told them no, business have called for them to stop looking into it. it isn't technically possible.
How about David Davis' plan for a ten mile wide border in Ireland? I think that lasted 12 hours before he had to admit it was impossible.
Or the plan to strike FTAs with the U.S.A ... just as Trump stirs up a trade war.
Wild wishful hoping, positing of impossibilities isn't a 'plan'.
It is a disgrace that they offered the option of 'leave' without a plan of what it looks like.
It is a disgrace that they triggered article 50 without a plan of what Brexit would look like - or how to achieve it.
And it is a disgrace that with less than a year to go, they are still pissing around with ideas that can never work either because they break the rules of the EU (you know, those rules we helped write?) or because the technology doesn't exist yet, or because it doesn't acknowledge the complexities of FTAs and WTO rules and tarriff and non-tarriff barriers and and and ad infinitum all the other incredibly complex things they didn't bother to think about before they opted to do all this.

So yes, they can be equally berated for not having a plan - and for having shit plans. Planning impossible things amounts to not having a plan.

"But I am almost daring to hope that we are just about to seeing reversal on SM and CU. It seems like May has finally woken up to the realisation that within this time frame the only option is staying in the SM and CU, or no deal. Just as most of the "experts" said two years ago."

And if that happens May keeps the DUP on board to keep her in power also. Win win.

It has nothing to do with the so called will of the people, or taking back control, it has however got everything to do with retaining power, often at someone else's expense.

The trouble with having a nice stockpile of food (which I do for financial reasons because it's cheaper to buy in bulk) as my mother pointed out from experience of genuine food shortages is that if you live anywhere near any hungry people, they are going to smell that food when you try to cook it or perhaps even if you open a tin of e.g. Corned Beef which is quite pungent.
If you are the only one not losing weight, desperately searching for food you will be noticed, so you can't just hide in your house unless it's a fortress.
Genuinely hungry people will loot your home if their kids are crying from hunger.

I personally carry a 3/6 month supply of food along with fuel to cook it & have a garden full of fruit/veg, but I doubt we'd safely get through a fortnight if this really happened because I'm a disabled single parent with a primary school aged child surrounded by an estate full of fit healthy men with partners/wives & their children who I know damn well probably don't have more than a couple of days at most worth of food in their homes.

Zombies would be safer.

The government aren't seriously planning for a no deal because its just not an option, and May, for all her awfulness, doesn't want to make it one.

freegazelle I don't dare to get my hopes too high, but I hope the tide is turning on that. On my better days, I agree with thecliteratti. On my worse days I want to stick my head in a gas oven. Sadly my oven is electric.

TheElementsSong I'm seconding your proposal.

I think if we got to a no deal situation may would probably resign and we’d be left with chaos in any event imo!

Francis "Jerry Can" Maude got his arse handed to him on a plate for suggesting the stockpiling of petrol.

Try buying British wherever possible; those products don't have to come through Dover and it will help our farmers and industries to prosper! Brexit will be a success if people are sensible even though it may be a bit of a rocky road at first. Most of the world manages to cope without being in the EU.

It was their negotiators' intention all along to never agree with anything Mrs May suggested because the EU was terrified other countries would want to leave too if they gave us a good deal. Hopefully, the situation in Italy will finish off the EU altogether and we can get back to trading with independent European countries in a friendly manner again sometime in the not too distant future.

Even a small country like Iceland managed to leave the EU and survive. We should never have got entangled with them in the first place. The people were never asked if they wanted to join the Common Market, as it was then. If the EU thinks they can win by making Britain poorer then they will be the losers ultimately because consumers won't be able to afford to buy their wine, cheeses, cars etc.

Christ, this is bloody terrifying. I voted remain, but I never thought this would be the outcome of the leave vote. Your neighbours looting your house? People running out of medicine and dying? Rationing?

Is this likely to actually happen?!