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A "doomsday" style no-deal Brexit could see empty supermarket shelves within days.
- A "doomsday" style Brexit could see the country grind to a halt within a fortnight.
- This is because the Port of Dover would collapse on "day one," according to scenarios drawn up for David Davis, as reported by The Sunday Times.
- From there, things just get worse as food would run out "within days" and hospitals would run out of medicine "within weeks."
- A spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union has dismissed this scenario from becoming reality.
LONDON - A no-deal Brexit could see Britain run out of food within days, according to a "doomsday scenario."
The UK is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019 and senior civil servants have produced three alternative scenarios - "a mild one, a severe one, and one dubbed 'Armageddon'" - for David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU.
The Sunday Times reports that Whitehall "has begun contingency planning for the Port of Dover to collapse 'on day one'."
The Port of Dover, the nearest English port to France, is responsible for handling approximately 17% of the UK's trade in goods, so if Britain crashed out of the EU with no deal and the port collapsed, it could lead to a desperate shortage of essential supplies.
A Sunday Times source said: "In the second scenario, not even the worst, the port of Dover will collapse on day one. The supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days, and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks."
The UK may even have to enlist the help of the Royal Air Force to shuttle supplies to the more remote areas of the country.
"You would have to medevac medicine into Britain, and at the end of week two we would be running out of petrol as well," the source added.
A spokesman for the Department of Exiting the EU confirmed discussions on different scenarios had occurred but said claims of a "doomsday" outcome becoming reality were "completely false."
"A significant amount of work and decision making has gone into our no deal plans, especially where it relates to ports, and we know that none of this would come to pass," the spokesman said.
Reuters