Dexeu discussing cancelling police leave for two months in case of ‘no deal’ Brexit backlash All police leave could be cancelled in the two months after Brexit

Plans to ask police chiefs to cancel officers’ leave in the two months after Brexit have been discussed in Whitehall as the government readies itself for the worst case scenario of social unrest caused by a No Deal.

i understands that officials at the Department of Exiting the European Union (Dexeu) are contemplating the move as they prepare to issue guidance to individuals and businesses over how they should prepare for a chaotic British exit from the EU next March.

One MP protested last night that the police should be fighting crime rather than coping with a “no-deal shambles”.

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While Brexiteers will dismiss the plan as scare-mongering, it comes after a raft of recent warnings of the consequence of a no-deal Brexit.

These include the government stockpiling food to cope with food shortages, and a weekend report – later denied by Downing Street – that the army was on standby to cope with disorder.

Preparing for civil unrest

Food shortages could happen because Britain is on a just-in-time import basis which could be scuppered by custom delays.

Reports from a series of Freedom of Information requests this week also showed that many local authorities are preparing for civil unrest and while impact reports obtained by Sky from Kent County Council found it was preparing for 13 miles of the M20 near Dover to be a lorry park until at least 2023.

A report by civil servants reached a conclusion similar to the local councils’ in June. In a worst case scenario, the port of Dover would “collapse on day one,” it said.

Officials would have to charter planes to airlift medicines into the country, and within days petrol would be in short supply.

Within two weeks, supermarket shelves would be bare. Half our food is imported, of which 80 per cent comes from Europe via Dover.

No authority to intervene

“Nobody voted for a chaotic or dangerous Brexit. Nobody voted for their safety to be put at risk or for food supplies to be threatened or medicines to be stockpiled.” Chris Leslie

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “The Police have not been asked to cancel leave. The Government is focused on securing a good Brexit deal which works in the interest of the UK and the EU.”

Home Office sources pointed out that the government had no authority to intervene in the staffing arrangements of local forces.

The government is preparing to issue two tranches of plans setting out proposals for no-deal planning over the next month.

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said it had not been made aware of the proposals.

The Labour MP Chris Leslie, a former Cabinet Office minister for civil contingencies and emergency planning, said: “Nobody voted for a chaotic or dangerous Brexit. Nobody voted for their safety to be put at risk or for food supplies to be threatened or medicines to be stockpiled.

Public safety

“It is truly shocking that all of these things could now happen and that a botched Brexit could even end up threatening public safety.

“Our police should be catching criminals, not preparing to handle a post-Brexit shambles.”

Any such move is unlikely to be kindly received by police officers. Met Police officers alone saw 189,000 cancelled rest days last year because of “unprecedented” demands on the force.

Officers had been allowed to carry rest days into 2018 and 2019, said Deputy Met Commissioner Craig Mackey.