Leaked Brexit Document Depicts Government Fears Of Gridlock, Food Shortages, Unrest

[jpak]

Source: NPR

Britain would face gridlock at ports; shortages of medicine, fuel and food; and a hard border with Ireland if it left the European Union with no deal, according to a leaked government document.

The U.K. seems increasingly likely to crash out of the EU on Oct. 31, and the picture the government paints in a confidential document compiled under the code name Operation Yellowhammer and obtained by the Sunday Times is sobering. It details the ways government leaders are working to avert a "catastrophic collapse in the nation's infrastructure."

Trucks could be dealt 2 1/2-day delays at ports, with significant disruption lasting up to three months, which would affect fuel supplies in London and the southeast of England, according the document.

Medical supplies will also be vulnerable to "severe extended delays," since about three-quarters of the U.K.'s medicine comes across the English Channel.

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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/18/752173091/leaked-brexit-document-depicts-government-fears-of-gridlock-food-shortages-unres

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[LonePirate]

1. The racist, blue collar whites in Britain asked for exactly this by supporting Brexit.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Why would Britain, with all the 20th Century European wars

do this stupid thing?

[sandensea]

6. While there was definitely a racist angle, behind it all is 'the City' (their Wall Street)

They never liked living under EU anti-money laundering regulations (such as they are) - and see Brexit as their big chance to finally get out from under them.

This is why May had an unyielding Brexit-or-Bust attitude throughout the controversy - no matter who else got hurt (including her own party, and even career). She's their lackey, through and though - as is Johnson, of course.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. ah, right.

What James Burke in his epic series "The Day the Universe Changed" referred to as laissez-faire 18th century capitalists. Totally free marketers who launched expeditions via incorporated companies (risk to shareholders, not to them), timber, railroad, coal barons, the slave trade, and probably Lloyds of London, while they all lived in palaces on country estates of thousands of acres. Yes, I could see they always wanted no regulations, just like Trump has done, consequences to the populace be damned.

Happy Monday morning to ya!

[sandensea]

11. Likewise!

[Ghost Dog]

13. Right on.

For a certain socioeconomic class only.

[Ghost Dog]

12. Regarding the UK's relationship with the EU

the historical default position, perhaps this can eventually change, is that the UK in the EU has always been out for itself, putting its own interests first, last and everywhere in between, rarely showing the slightest sign or unforced gesture of solidarity even with the closest neighbours in Western Europe of the earlier EEC, much less with Eastern European nations of the enlarged EU, an enlargement, let us remember, strongly lobbied for by Margaret Thatcher and her civil servants in Europe (with the aim of diluting the "power" in the EU of those very same neighbouring Western European historical rivals), along with the principle of subsidiarity.

I have placed the term "power" in quotes above because the UK, and before that England, has always played power games on the European stage since even before Henry VIII's and his successors' great political and commercial as well as military rivalry with the Spanish Empire, the Catholic Church, the Low Countries, and with the Royal Houses of France and beyond, and this history has conditioned the attitude of the UK ruling elite classes, and so populist attitudes at large via control of the narrative spun by influential English-language media as well as through educational curricula, towards the EU.

The other "powerful" nations of the EU, however, don't see things that way. Certainly without ignoring the (long, rich and deep as well as tragic) history, looking inward as well as outward onto the world stage, they see that in the present day and age real power and influence can best be achieved by working together to consolidate in mutually-beneficial solidarity the EU.

GD

[bucolic_frolic]

15. History makes more sense to me when painted with a long, broad brush

because the patterns can be seen and examined. I suppose superiority is earned when you have natural geographic boundaries and the requirement of maintaining the world's best navy just to survive. Yet all the populations of Britain are mingled to the extent many or most of them came from Europe - Celts, Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Normans. Could an indigenous Brit be found today? Maybe on some of those North Atlantic islands - New Hebrides, or Scotland's Cruden Bay? The Scots. They must be indigenous.

[Ghost Dog]

16. Nope, not the Scots. The Picts were indigenous; none left now.

Ancestors of all today's inhabitants migrated there and mixed since late neolithic times, and mostly during the bronze and iron ages, with successive waves and more individual immigration (and of course emigration) since.

The main island, Great Britain, was connected to the mainland until only ca. ten thousand years ago.

Sea power should always go hand-in-hand with trade, diplomacy, courts of justice.

[dalton99a]

3. "These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios -- not the worst case."

A government source told the Sunday Times: "This is not Project Fear — this is the most realistic assessment of what the public face with no deal. These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios — not the worst case."

[Jedi Guy]

4. Yikes. If that's the "basic, reasonable scenario" what the hell does the worst case look like?

Are we gonna watch the UK tear itself apart live on CNN in a few months' time? I guess that'll show those EU bureaucrats who's boss, eh?

Meanwhile, the so-called elites will hole up in their estates (with stockpiled food, water, fuel, and medicine, naturally) while the country turns into Mad Max with posh accents around them. Or they'll just pull up stakes and flee the country, I suppose.

What a complete dumpster fire.

[wolfie001]

5. In years passed, when the UK was facing a crisis....

.....they let their navy blockade ports and invade strategic locations to make their enemies heel to their will. That option has ended and yet they still have that notion of superiority. Time will tell just how bad they miscalculated.

[BannonsLiver]

14. Please.

I've spend a good deal of time there, the average Britan doesn't have an air of superiority. You must be thinking of your fellow Americans. There is no more arrogant, boorish form of humanity than your run of the mill American.

[wolfie001]

17. That's EXACTLY the world view of Boris Johnson

And yes, we have donald dump but I sure as hell didn't vote for him. Ha ha

[Gumboot]

7. It's now or never for a peasants' revolt.

Otherwise, wholesale destruction of Britons' many EU rights and protections is what's on the horizon. And the privileged and powerful are salivating at the thought of their long-cherished dream coming true.

I've still got a bunch of old working class friends over there, many of whom work in public services, and I'm desperately worried for them right now. A police dispatcher, a firefighter, a mental health nurse, a primary (elementary) school teacher, and several more.

Barring the pitchfork rebellion, the powerful & privileged ruling clahsses will be insulated and unaffected, but the other 99% are going to wake up and find their country has become a minimum wage feudal plantation.

This old Brit is sick to the pit of his stomach.

[NBachers]

8. "Don't worry, Boris will fix everything for us."

[oasis]

10. "Be careful what you wish for". nt