Despite the hysteria, Yellowhammer suggests there is little to fear about a no-deal Brexit
ROSS CLARK
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12 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 12:22PM
Ramsgate. Pic Shows The Port of Ramsgate which will re-open . In The case of a Brexit no deal in March. Pic Shows The currently closed Port of Ramsgate which could re-open in the event of a No Deal Brexit with a deal with Seaborne Freight
The documents are not a prediction but a worse case scenario
What is most striking about these documents is how unfrightening it all is
How ironic that whenever the BBC runs a story about a no-deal Brexit it uses a photograph of lorries backed up along the M20 taken during the Calais port strikes in 2015. On that occasion, strikers dumped tyres on the road leading to Calais docks and set them alight, closing the port altogether and leading to long tailbacks of lorries in Britain and France.
Yet did the supermarkets run out of food? Did the British public riot because they were unable to get one type of lettuce? Industrial disputes affecting vital infrastructure are just one of the many crises for which governments have to plan. I presume – and hope – there are people in Whitehall already engaged in detailed contingency planning in the event of a general strike in Britain: something which many on the left keep demanding for various reasons and which a Corbyn government would help enable by repealing much trade union law.
Remainers who demanded that the government release documents relating to Operation Yellowhammer, which make preparations for the event of a no deal Brexit, know full well the nature of this kind of planning. It is not a prediction but a worse case scenario, helping the government in its planning to mitigate the risks. Those like Sir Keir Starmer who are jumping up and down this morning trying to tell us that a no deal Brexit would be a national catastrophe have chosen to distort the purpose of Operation Yellowhammer – trying to present it instead as a forecast of what will happen in spite of government planning.
As Jean-Marc Puissesseau, President of the ports of Boulogne and Calais explained last month, there are individuals in Britain who are “whipping up catastrophism for their own reasons” – ie they are trying to frighten the public in a last, desperate bid to frustrate Brexit. He says his ports have all the systems in place to ensure that goods and people can continue to flow freely in the event of no deal on 31 October.
While not all hauliers may have their paperwork in order for the first morning, his officials have been instructed to act with flexibility, rather than holding up lines of traffic because one lorry driver does not have the code for his carrots. Flexibility, after all, is only what keeps the Cross-Channel ports running as they are. If customs officials stopped and searched every vehicle for illegal drugs or wine and tobacco on which duty has not been paid, no-one would get anywhere.
What is most striking about the Operation Yellowhammer document is how unfrightening it is – not least because it is pretty much the same as the document leaked last month. In the worst-case scenario they can envisage, the authors see no possibility that electricity, gas or water supplies will be interrupted. Airports will continue to function. There will be some protests and counter- protests – but can anyone remember a weekend when there wasn’t some march taking place in London?
The only genuine reason for concern are the Channel ports, which the document claims could – without suitable planning – see lorry capacity reduced to 40-60 percent of normal for the first three months. Far from the picture of mass hunger presented by the catastrophists, the document envisages only shortages of ‘certain types of fresh food’, with resulting price rises. But then there are an awful lot of types of fresh food available in British supermarkets – in spite of efforts by the green lobby to make us eat only local-produced food. I guess we would survive if there were a temporary shortage of avocado.
Then again, I wouldn’t have my money even on that grim prospect. If there are food shortages it will be thanks to panic-buying before we actually leave the EU. Come the day, I have a suspicion the shops will be heaving with stock and the ports will be running more smoothly than usual as ordinary motorists, having had scare stories drummed into them for months, avoid them. I foresee the front pages on 31 October showing pictures of the odd, lonely truck driving through Dover with the headline: “Where is everyone?”