Project Fear -- Best Yet!

The Graun tries to pull out all the stops on the hell ('chaos' or 'catastrophe' are the terms among the chattering classes) that will be hard Brexit, especially since it thinks elsewhere that the Cooper amendment to 'delay' Brexit might be in trouble: 'A backbench plan to ward off a no-deal Brexit by extending article 50 is in the balance amid concerns from Labour MPs in leave-voting seats, who fear it could be seen as an attempt to frustrate Britain’s departure from the EU'.How could they think such a terrible thing!

The Graun structures its Project Fear piece rather oddly. It begins with:

Cabinet Office compares no-deal Brexit to Iceland ash cloud chaos

I am not at all sure that too many of us remember the Iceland ash cloud chaos, apart from the Flying Classes. I certainly do not recall queues for toilet paper or dying diabetics.  However, the Graun clarifies:

The repercussions for the UK of a no-deal Brexit could be similar to the national emergency faced by Iceland [my emphasis]

Still not very scary I suspect. As if in recognition of this, the Graun ups the stakes:

The Cabinet Office believes this represents the “nearest recent example” of what government departments could have to cope with. But the potential disruption to the UK from Brexit is likely to be much broader, according to the government’s private planning assumptions [leaked]...The contingency planning for no-deal – codenamed Operation Yellowhammer – has so far involved hundreds of civil servants being given a three-hour introductory briefing on the potential impact on communities, trade, border crossings and regulations...The government has a running list of “reasonable worst-case scenarios”, which is constantly being amended and updated. Earlier this month it included a gamut of serious concerns.
According to an internal document seen by the Guardian, these included:

• A reduction in certain fresh foods and increases in prices, with people on low incomes disproportionately affected.[No strawberries! Price rises unlike with any other!]
• Price rises across utilities and services including fuel.[ as bad as the steady increase over the last 5 years?]
• Private companies “cashing in” because they will put commercial considerations first.[a terrible slur]
• Police forces being stretched by the likelihood of protests and counter-protests, along with an increase in public disorder [maybe the Guardina should stop encouraging PV demos?] .
• Restocking of medicines becoming problematic after the first six weeks.[more dying diabetics]
• Disruption of supplies to vets, which could “impact the UK’s ability to prevent and control disease outbreaks” among animals [should have mentioned pets as well].
• A significant reduction in the flow of goods through Dover and Eurotunnel to as low as 13% of current capacity on the day [my emphasis] of Brexit.[should reduce the 27km queues anyway?]

Even COBRA might be unable to cope:

“Cobra can only take decisions if it knows what is going on at the local level,” said one. “It needs information that has been properly collected and collated. At the moment we don’t have that system in place.”

The Graun  ends with its trump card:

On Friday the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said there would be significant disruption to the UK economy if Britain left the EU without a deal.

And then, in a climax designed to really terrify us all into marching to demand no deal is 'taken off the table', they cite Hammond again:

“We will find ways of managing things like the additional time it takes for trucks to get through the border,” he told the BBC’s Today programme. “But it might take us quite a while to sort that out. So there will be a short-term impact through disruption. There will be a long-term impact through a reduction in the size of our economy.”