Brexit plans raise fears of food shortages and blocked ports



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LONDON – Trucks parked along highways or stranded in secure ports. Food is disappearing from supermarket shelves and stocks of live drugs. The military waiting, ready to intervene to avoid the crisis.

For a British public that has often ignored the staggering complexities of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, recent government statements, amplified by headlines, have

for days , the government's preparations for a disruptive departure from the European Union without any agreement turned in circles, which could mean new border controls, blocked ports, abandoned trucks and food.

Speculation was brought about by a promise from the government to prepare for all eventualities, including the extreme of a "no-agreement" departure from the European Union, or Brexit . But even before the publication of the first of about 70 official warning documents for businesses and consumers, they had begun to look, through the filter of the British media, at rationing and other preparations during the Second World War. 19659005] On Monday, the government insisted that he had "no plan" to involve the army and that he was coming back on the schedule of the 70 warnings. They should initially appear regularly throughout the summer, which would have generated maximum publicity. Now the documents are expected in August and early September, probably twice

Already, efforts to prepare for the possibility of a "Brexit" without agreement have drawn attention to the extreme consequences Britain might face and they may have been unable to do much to mitigate them.

And they irritated the people they were supposed to please: uncompromising Brexit supporters who had urged the government to do "no". "It has not been a huge success, and I do not know what it is that thought," said Anand Menon, a professor at New York University. "It started as a way to appease the Brexiters," he said, "and then it has become something that the Brexiters hate because emergency planning seems so terrible." [19659002] Now, with opinion polls suggesting that concerns about chaos are spreading to the public, Brexit supporters have renewed their denunciations of "fear of the project" – a term used successfully in the Brexit referendum campaign 2016.

blame. For months, they urged the government to prepare a non-negotiating scenario to strengthen its negotiating position with the European Union, and Prime Minister Theresa May finally yielded.

Things began to be difficult when Brexit's new secretary, Dominic Raab, chief promoter of the withdrawal, held a meeting with business leaders. He would have been informed by Doug Gurr, a senior executive at Amazon, that there might be [traduction] "19459009" "civil unrest" in two weeks if Britain left the bloc without agreement.

Last week, Mr. Raab badured that he in the case of a Brexit "without agreement", but suggested that it would be the responsibility of the food industry as it would be " bad to describe it as the government doing the storage. "

While he was expecting retailers and suppliers to start sourcing quietly in essentials, he does not seem to have talked to key figures first.

"Food storage is not a practical answer to a non-agreement on Brexit and the industry has not been approached by the government To begin planning this," British Retail Consortium, which represents many retail companies, said in a brief statement.

"Retailers do not have facilities for storing stored products and in the case of fresh produce it is possible to do so," I

Others complained that the government had Air incompetent and naive. "The idea of ​​storage and storage is a red herring," said Shane Brennan, general manager of the Food Storage and Distribution Federation, a trade lobby group.

"Food supply systems do not work like this," he added. "The food is kept moving – it's out of the ground and at the point of sale as quickly as possible." The idea of ​​storing it suggests a lack of understanding about how things work. "[19659002] Great Britain is vulnerable because it supplies 30% of its food to the European Union, plus 11% thanks to trade agreements negotiated by the bloc. Feeding Great Britain: food security After Brexit, report of the Center for Food Policy

Contracts for food supplies are usually established 12 months in advance, food arriving via a complex logistic system running just at The port of Dover, through which thousands of trucks pbad every day, has warned that a delay of only two minutes for order processing could lead to waiting queues for 17 pbadengers. miles.

"If there are delays due to additional inspections, you have all the Armageddon that goes with it," said Nigel Jenney, general manager of the Fresh Produce Consortium, a group that represents the companies in this part of the food sector. "These things are highly perishable, and they can not stay there for days."

In theory, the European Union and Britain both have an interest in maintaining trade.

The British government negotiated a transitional period, during which the commercial ties would remain the same, from the date of departure in March of next year until December 2020. The hic, c & c. Is that this is conditional on a withdrawal agreement that has yet to be finalized.

Robert Hardy, the commercial director of Oakland International, a logistics and distribution specialist, dismissed some of the more difficult scenarios and argued that the British authorities would waive the obligation to "get the job done." stop trucks in key ports like Dover

. According to Mr. Hardy, [traduction] "For imports, I do not see any major changes," he said.

That said, he acknowledged that there could be big problems. or exporters if, as is likely, French officials imposed new controls. Others point out that trucks delivering supplies to Britain would have a hard time getting home, disrupting the supply chain and affecting imports.

Ian Wright, Executive Director of the Food and Beverage Federation, who represents soft drink manufacturers The group was studying strategies to limit the impact of a Brexit without finding

But the margin Storage is limited by the cost, the availability of storage space and the fact that fresh foods deteriorate rapidly.

is not going to run out of food – it's not about the return of rationing, "Wright said. "But there could be shortages and an erosion of choice."

For the government, there is a small glimmer of hope in another bad report on Brexit.

If Ms. May can negotiate an agreement with the European Union in the fall, and avoid a disruptive release of the block, her agreement will sound better than the chaos of the alternative " without compromise, "Menon said.

"Maybe that helps Theresa May get back on all the speculation about" not agreeing "and saying," At least, I avoided all that, "he said. .

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