Will you be disappointed if Brexit goes smoothly

[Tawdrylocalbrouhaha]

Genuine question to the Preppers - how will you feel if Brexit goes through with no significant shortages or civil unrest? Will you heave a sigh of relief and sleep better at night, or feel a tiny bit flat and disappointed?

It's the slightly excited tone of some of the Prepper threads that has me wondering this. As if having a reason to hoard is fulfilling some squirrelesque instinct, which my be thwarted if the hoards prove unnecessary?

Everything you said @MrsTerryPratchett (jealous of your name btw )

We get notices from the government and media regarding having supplies and being prepped here for disasters. Schools sell first aid kits for cars and homes for fundraising. I keep being surprised by people not having extra stores on MN, as everyone I know in RL does prep, especially water and food.

did brexiteers genuinely not understand that this process is already fucking the economy? it is not going smoothly and it will not go smoothly. wake up.

i dont understand how op thinks brexit is going smoothly. companies are racing to leave the uk - hasnt she noticed?

I'll be relieved if prices stay the same and there are no supply issues but considering the problems that businesses are having now before brexit, then I don't hold out any hope.
If things are ok then my stash will mean I have a good supply of food to feed my family and don't need to go to the shops very often apart from for fresh produce. I've stocked up on things we use regularly so nothing will be wasted. As a single mum that is sometimes stuck in due to illness of either a child or myself then having a good supply of food is reassuring. From now on I'll always have a small buffer of food and household essentials and toiletries regardless of brexit because it's sensible to do so.

Prepper here. I would be thrilled if it goes smoothly. And the idea that I wouldn't be is more foolish divisive bollocks. I have a family. I have lived through rationing, shortages and even martial law in another country. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Particularly my daughter.

Will you be disappointed if price rises mean you're eating a less varied diet of tinned and dried foods than me but paying 3 times as much?

I'll be gutted of course, and begging you to share!

As for the "slightly excited" tone of other posters. It's called "being positive " and "taking back control ". Of a shitshow.

do you think its going smoothly op?

i dont understand how op thinks brexit is going smoothly. companies are racing to leave the uk - hasnt she noticed?

Clearly Brexit is a mistake, and I'm sure it will have economic ramifications. But...sadly I don't think these can be controlled by hoarding relatively small amounts of food. And even if it could, I think the months of planning and discussion of hoards are about something other than keeping a bit of extra food in the house - it seems more like a hobby/interest?

I have always got 2 to 3 weeks worth of food in. I started doing this after the fuel strikes in the early 2000s. Once you see how fragile supply lines are it just makes sense. If Bee it turns out great I will be delighted to have been proved wrong.

No prepping whatsoever here.

I know it's not the same but when the Euro was brought in as a currency, no guidance was issued, preparations couldn't be made, it was a huge issue to me and the job I did. I had the old currencies to convert and revalue. That was a shambles.

Brexit! Not Bee!

How do you think the government will feel about the gargantuan sums of money it is spending on a myriad of no deal preparations including turning motorways into Lorry parks, deals to imaginary ferry companies, freezer space, stocking up military bases with supplies, employing hundreds of staff to turn out vast numbers of no deal brexit notices, etc etc if by some miracle an actual reasonable deal is reached?

It rather makes a few bags of frozen veggies pale into insignificance.

I hang about on the prepper boards and have done for a very long time under various names. I would consider myself more of a girl guide/wannabe homesteader/naturally frugal type than a "prepper" in the way that most people understand the term "prepper". My BF is convinced that in a previous life I was alive during wartime rationing. I like to know that I am in a good position to keep my family secure, I prefer to buy things when they're on offer rather than pay full price, I like to reuse things rather than buy new, I have an interest in vegetable gardening, home cooking etc. I always have very well stocked cupboards even when we are not living in such turbulent times.

I will be very relieved if things go smoothly, although there are few indications at the moment that this will be the case. If things do go smoothly I shall not have to buy diet coke for a good while (stocked up after Christmas when almost half price) and shall find it very easy to make bolognese for the next few months since there are 10 jars of Lloyd Grossman ready made sauce in my cupboard (again bought when half price ) with plenty of pasta. Hardly a big problem and it will all be used gradually over the next six months or so. I've viewed this as an insurance policy. I might not need it but at the moment it's there in case I do.

On the other hand those who have simply scoffed and not bothered to put anything by just in case have no insurance policy...

‘Hoarding’. Lovely negative connotations there.

No OP. It’s not ‘evil hoarding’. It’s putting supplies by so that you can support yourself in the event of interruption to supplies. Which every single houselhold with the money/space should do as part of their normal daily lives.

In Germany you are expected to keep a weeks supplies available. In Switzerland I think it might be three weeks. The Mormon hutch apparently suggests a years supplies (though that seems excessive). In the UK we get advised three days.

And no, I won’t be disappointed. I’ll be relieved.

I know it's not the same but when the Euro was brought in as a currency, no guidance was issued, preparations couldn't be made,

Were you in the UK? I was living in a Eurozone country for a couple of years running up to the introduction of the Euro and the transition was very smooth. Things in the shops etc had been priced in both the local currency and the Euro for two years.

Y2k has absolutely no comparison to Brexit. It was a known, quantifiable problem with a specific time limit that was had ongoing preparation for a number of years. No-deal Brexit has extremely wide-ranging consequences covering everything from medicines to farm animals and almost no preparation has been made.

it seems more like a hobby/interest?

Yes, is that a problem for you? I've been a prepper for years. Very much treated with an indulged pat on the head from the husband but I've caught him slipping cat tuna into the house for the cupboard. He's never really paid much attention to my cupboard but I can see it's reassuring him. He's horrified at how all this has been handled.

I remember the fuel strikes as well, it was a miserable time that went to shit fast.

If it comes to nothing that's great, I'll go back to my private hobby/interest the way I always have. I'm just a bit bemused how threatened it makes people feel.

Christ I thought gaming was at the top of the scorn list as hobby's go

I'm a prepper. But nothing to do with Brexit. I've been a prepper ever since Storm Desmond. We were one of the towns with no power nor telecoms for a few days.

Having seen how utterly ill-prepared and incompetent the utility companies, local authorities, and emergency services were in the first couple of days with no power and no telecoms, I vowed to ensure that we would always have enough food and water supplies to last a week or two.

Luckily, I was already the kind of person who has a few "extras" in the cupboard as I don't like to find myself caught without anything, so we were fine for the 3 days it took before limited power was restored (on/off all day as the generators kept tripping out) and shops started to re-open, but it was a close thing.

First thing I did when things were back to near normality (7-10 days later) was buy a camping stove, a couple of cool boxes, an extra freezer for the garage, several torches, a box of candles and a couple of new bikes. They all get used anyway, but now we're a lot better prepared for if it happens again. I've also been buying more non-perishable food, toiletries, medical supplies, etc - nothing extreme, just the odd extra packet so, say I have two packets of corn flakes in the cupboard instead of one.

So, I'm ready for any short term Brexit disruption, but I've done nothing different from last year or the year before. I'm just a prepper anyway.

How do you think the government will feel about the gargantuan sums of money it is spending on a myriad of no deal preparations including turning motorways into Lorry parks, deals to imaginary ferry companies, freezer space, stocking up military bases with supplies, employing hundreds of staff to turn out vast numbers of no deal brexit notices, etc etc if by some miracle an actual reasonable deal is reached?

Exactly the same way they feel about all the other contingency plans that are made and reviewed each day, each week, each year, for hundreds of scenarios, as they've been doing for decades. Brexit is just another scenario that they are planning for, in the same way they plan for nuclear holocaust, winter flu, antibiotic resistant infections, terrorist plots, gas explosions, fires at football stadia, train crashes, and alien invasions!

I'd be relieved.
But the food and drink industry doesn't think it will go smoothly, and I have more faith in their knowledge and expertise than I have in the Government.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47200688
"Businesses throughout the UK food chain - and their trade associations - are now totally focused on working to mitigate the catastrophic impact of a no-deal Brexit," says the letter, which was sent last Friday.

@Bluntness100 I want to know why you think we don't need to prep and what info you have that isn't being reported in the media. Genuinely curious as it would allay my fears, but I'm guessing you can't say

I will be very relieved if all turns out ok but based on the sheer incompetence currently displayed by the government I am not hopeful.

I'm still holding out hope it won't happen at all so I'll be disappointed on that score but assuming it happens I'll be pleased if it is smooth.

@Squiddy I wouldn't put too much faith in someone who in the next sentence, implies the Y2K bug was a hoax.