MPs blast doomsday reports Britain would run out of food and medicine in ‘no deal’ scenario
PLANS for a nightmare Brexit scenario where food, petrol and medicines run out were blasted last night.
Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg called the leaked civil service briefing — which also poses the idea of the Port of Dover collapsing on Day One — a “false scare story”.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid also condemned the no-deal Brexit plans, which rank potential situations as mild, severe and Armageddon.
Mr Rees-Mogg called it “Project Fear on speed” and said: “It is a fallacy that countries will unilaterally decide to stop selling you their goods.
“The idea that food will not get through at Dover is entirely wrong.
“We would be free to import food, medicines, fuel as we wished and the EU could only stop this if it were to impose sanctions, which is not a credible thought.”
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He added: “You have got to ask who benefits from leaking this and it’s clearly a remainer.
“This is a political, not a bureaucratic report, and also economically illiterate.
“It is trying to damage the case for no deal but it fails because it’s a gamma minus piece of work.”
Quizzed on the report, Mr Javid also said he did not “recognise any bit of that at all” and said he was confident on getting a deal.
During the EU referendum David Cameron and George Osborne’s warnings that the UK would be forced into a recession by Brexit were slammed by eurosceptics as “Project Fear”.
The Department for Exiting the European Union said: “A significant amount of work and decision making has gone into our no deal plans, especially where it relates to ports, and we know that none of this would come to pass.”
SUN SAYS
THE prediction of a no-deal Brexit apocalypse is both ludicrous and hysterical.
A civil service briefing claims it would leave us without food, petrol and medicines. Jacob Rees-Mogg has rightly dismissed it as “Project Fear on speed”. It is a wicked attempt to terrify us into bottling a no-deal Brexit.
The doomsday report was leaked by officials who believe Brexiteers are “too bullish” about a no-deal Brexit.
Given how useless other dramatic Project Fear predictions have been, the latest should be taken with several bucketloads of salt.
The pro-EU fanatics jumping on this story are, of course, the very same people who have screamed since the Referendum about our economy collapsing and hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost. Voters are wise to their guff.
Theresa May has just enough time to prepare for any potential scenario, but only if she stops being bullied into paralysis by arch-Remainers in Downing Street and Whitehall.
Get on with it, PM.