Jeremy Corbyn has demanded that Boris Johnson immediately publish the Operation Yellowhammer assessments of how disruptive a no-deal Brexit would be after ministers claimed a leaked version from less than three weeks ago was out of date and full of scaremongering.
The Labour leader said it was essential that businesses be given an accurate assessment of the difficulties they may face under a no-deal Brexit, arguing that Johnson’s reassurances “cannot be trusted”.
The prime minister claimed on Monday that a no-deal Brexit would merely involve “bumps in the road”, despite the leaked Yellowhammer document predicting shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
But Corbyn said these denials “will do nothing to give businesses or consumers any confidence that the dire state of affairs described in the documents aren’t right around the corner”.
Speaking before a visit to businesses in Stevenage on Tuesday, Corbyn said: “The government’s own Operation Yellowhammer dossier makes the chaos and damage that will be caused by Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit crystal clear.
“If the government wants to be believed that it doesn’t represent the real impact, it must publish its most recent assessments today in full.”
He added: “What we know for sure is that this government is wilfully committed to a policy that the prime minister and the cabinet know will destroy jobs, push up food prices in the shops and open up our NHS to a takeover by US private companies.”
Corbyn joined calls from more than 100 MPs for a recall of parliament to address the worries about a no-deal Brexit, but Downing Street rejected that idea.
Whitehall sources said Michael Gove, the minister in charge of no-deal planning and Johnson’s righthand man in the Vote Leave campaign, would address parliament about the UK’s readiness to leave the EU without a deal when it returned in September.
“The House of Commons agreed the date it would rise for summer recess, as well as its return on 3 September, and this was passed by a majority of close to 200 MPs,” the prime minister’s spokeswoman said.
Downing Street said the documents were out of date and had been prepared under Theresa May’s government, even though they were dated and circulated in early August after Johnson had taken over as prime minister.
“In relation to business, we have been engaging widely and will continue to do so, and that’s been significantly stepped up in recent weeks,” the spokeswoman said. “We have published numerous documents on how businesses can prepare.
“You can expect to see further information being published in the coming weeks in relation to how the public … can further prepare and the changes that they are likely to see across a range of areas.”
The Cabinet Office documents, marked “official sensitive” and reportedly prepared earlier this month, examined the government’s contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit.
The files also said efforts to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland were likely to prove “unsustainable” in such a scenario, with fears of “direct action” and road blockades.
A public information campaign targeting consumers is being prepared for the next couple of weeks, in which digital media, newspapers, TV and radio will be used to explain how people can prepare for Brexit.
“The delay in information is that we have been preparing gov.uk for a massive traffic increase,” the source said.
“We know there is an appetite from the government for more information, particularly around no deal. It will be things like travel and passports, and [will be] more user-friendly.”
In further pressure on the government, Hilary Benn, the chair of the Brexit committee, wrote to Gove demanding clarification on aspects of the Yellowhammer report and calling on him to appear before the committee at the earliest opportunity when parliament returns.
He asked to know the date on which the report was drawn up, any significant steps that the government has taken since then in the past three weeks, and how these have mitigated each of the risks identified in the report and to what extent.
Since entering office, Johnson has been ramping up no-deal preparations, setting aside an extra £2bn for contingency measures and mitigation. A new planning exercise, codenamed Yellow Rehearse, was reported by BuzzFeed to be taking place so that diplomats and Whitehall departments could run through the possible consequences of a no-deal Brexit in early October.
The government did not confirm the operation but a spokesman said it “regularly conducts scenario-based exercises to ensure its plans are robust, including in relation to Brexit”.
