This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scottish police are setting up a special emergency planning centre near Edinburgh to cope with protests, crowd control at airports and haulage delays at ports in case the UK crashes out of the EU next month.

Scotland’s chief constable, Iain Livingstone, has said there will be “dynamic and fast moving challenges from Brexit” which could involve police officers being sent to ports and airports if flights and ferry services are disrupted.

He has cancelled plans to reduce frontline police numbers by 300 this year, previously agreed as a cost saving measure, and launched a new recruitment campaign to hire another 100 officers to bolster the force by around 400 constables to help cope with potential Brexit pressures.

Police Scotland announced on Wednesday that it had put 360 officers on standby for Brexit-related emergencies as part of UK-wide police planning for “reasonable worst-case scenarios”. It is thought they will be on standby for at least six months.

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Livingstone has also offered to send Scottish officers to help police the Irish border or deal with civil unrest and ferry disruption in ports and cities in Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Scotland has close cultural and historical ties with Northern Ireland, and is the closest UK jurisdiction geographically.

Police also fear there could be significant disruption to intelligence and data sharing with EU criminal justice agencies and police forces if there were a disorderly Brexit, potentially their investigations into cross-border crime.

Some officers are being deployed to the Brexit emergency centre in Bilston Glen in Midlothian, where the force will stage planning exercises with other emergency services, councils and government agencies to test their readiness for any disruption or disturbances.

Livingstone told the Scottish Police Authority, the civilian body that oversees the force, in late January that it had also drafted a Scottish impact assessment for a no-deal Brexit as part of a UK-wide police strategy.

“The type of planning being undertaken relates to a great variety of potential scenarios, ranging from disruption in law enforcement data, which may threaten the administration of justice, potential disruption around Scottish sea and airports, potentially leading to the delay in the movement of people and goods, to wider challenges across the United Kingdom including the potential for public disorder which would inevitably result in mutual aid requests,” he said.

Scottish government ministers wrote to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, on Friday to demand the Treasury fund these additional costs, citing Whitehall’s earlier agreement to provide an extra £17m to cover Brexit-related policing in Northern Ireland.

Derek Mackay, the Scottish finance secretary, and Humza Yousaf, the country’s justice secretary, told Hammond the extra Brexit-related policing costs were likely to cost about £17m a year, excluding capital costs for uniforms, equipment and vehicles of around £800,000 a year.

Those costs could continue until 2021, depending on how quickly Police Scotland was able to reduce its numbers after Brexit.

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“Scotland has exceptional requirements in relation to its distinct culture and geography, and separate constitutional and legal arrangements. Moreover, Police Scotland is preparing to provide mutual aid to other forces across the UK, should this be required,” they said.

“The Brexit funds that the Scottish government have so far been allocated fail to recognise these needs.”

A Whitehall source said Scottish ministers had already been allocated £92m to help with Brexit contingency costs, in part to help pay for extra policing. Whitehall officials suspect that money, which is not ring-fenced, is being used to fund day-to-day Scottish government spending.

The source said the Scottish government’s arguments were nonsense. “If the Scottish government is failing to allocate cash for Brexit preparation, it is not because they don’t have the money. It is because they would rather pick a constitutional fight with the UK government,” they said.

Deputy chief constable Will Kerr told the Scottish Police Authority On Wednesday that the deployment of officers for Brexit preparations was a contingency measure. Many would remain on normal duties at present.

“We have taken this decision so that we have enhanced capacity to respond to greater policing demands during this period. Our principle focus is, and will remain, the safety of the citizens of Scotland,” he said.

• This article was amended on 10 February 2019 to correct a spelling mistake in the name of Humza Yousaf.