The United Kingdom is pushing up emergency planning for a Brexit without agreement with Brussels. The British Treasury is releasing an additional 2.1 billion pounds to recruit, among other things, 500 border officers and to build up a large stock of medicines. The price tag thus comes to 6.3 billion pounds.
The British are increasingly taking into account a Brexit without agreement on 31 October. The new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already announced several times that he wants to leave his country by the European Union by that date.
He prefers a divorce agreement with Brussels, he says, but he does not accept the current text that his predecessor Theresa May has negotiated. The EU, on the other hand, is not willing to renegotiate.
The British Ministry of Finance is now releasing an additional 2.1 billion pounds in the context of emergency planning. With this, 500 extra border guards must be recruited, in addition to the 500 border officers that were promised earlier this year.
The additional forces must facilitate identity checks, train customs officers and manage the expected crowds in ports.
Besides, more than 400 million pounds goes to the construction of a large stock of life-saving medicines. The British government is also planning a significant awareness-raising campaign about the effects of the Brexit on ordinary Britons.
Labour Opposition Party speaks of a “terrible waste of public funds”, all because “Johnson necessarily wants a completely avoidable no-deal Brexit.” “This government could exclude a Brexit without agreement and spend all these billions on schools, hospitals and people.”
Boris Johnson has since returned to London after spending the last three days touring Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That tour did not go smoothly. On Thursday, the so-called XS committee, a consultative body with six top ministers on the Brexit, will meet for the first time.