Operation ‘No deal’? UK army braces for Brexit chaos as May faces fierce rejection of divorce plan
RT,
19
November, 2018
The
military is reportedly drafting contingency plans that could see
British troops deployed in the streets, as the prospects of a chaotic
Brexit seem increasingly realistic, with Theresa May facing a
potential no-confidence vote.
“About
20 officers who normally oversee Operation Temperer... were ordered
last week to step up no-deal Brexit planning,”the
Sunday Times reported,
citing a well-placed military source.
While
Operation Temperer officers are reserved as a response to terror
attacks, this time they were tasked with devising a strategy to
maintain public order and secure the flow of medical supplies to
hospitals. As many as 10,000 members of the military could be
deployed on British streets should UK exit the EU on March 29 with no
deal with Brussels.
The
army always makes “sensible
contingency plans” to
deal with all types of events, Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Nick
Carter told the
BBC last week. “At
this stage I think people are confident there will be a deal, if
there’s not one then we stand ready to help in any way we can.”
British
society remains highly divided over Theresa May’s draft withdrawal
agreement with the EU which was made public on Wednesday night and
prompted the resignation of seven ministers. A YouGov poll conducted
on Thursday found twice as many Britons oppose the deal as those who
support it (42 to 19 percent).
This
week, which she has described as “critical” for the very future
of the country, May will further confront her critics, emphasizing
that she will not renegotiate the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Ahead of
an intense week of negotiations with UK MPs before an EU summit on
the deal convenes on November 25, the Prime Minister is set
to tell the
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Monday that she
remains “confident” that
she “can
strike a deal at the Council that I can take back to the House of
Commons.”
The British public does not back Theresa May's Brexit deal
Support - 19%
Oppose - 42%
Don't know - 39%
42% of Leave voters oppose the deal, as do 47% of Remain votersyougov.co.uk/news/2018/11/1…
Amid
wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible
challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes
the chance of no-deal Brexit very real – as real as a no-confidence
vote. At least 23 of
her own fellow Conservative MPs (out of 48 needed) have already
expressed no-confidence in May and demanded that she step aside.
Opposition
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will lead the charge against May on
Monday and will describe May’s proposal as “a
botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal” that
is terrible for Britain.
Corbyn’s
sentiments seem to be shared in Edinburgh, where First Minister
Nicola Sturgeon noted that
it would be a “deeply
irresponsible” mistake
for the Parliament to endorse May’s deal. The Brexit process is
just "disastrous" and
does not take into account the views of the Scottish government,
Scotland's constitution minister, Michael Russell noted. “It
seems clear the UK Government’s deal will be defeated in the House
of Commons ... we will do everything in power to ensure a
common-sense alternative is in place,” Russell
said.
Former
foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in July over Brexit
plans, also expressed opposition to the deal ahead of May’s Monday
speech, and called the PM’s plan either “a
tragic illusion” or “an
attempt at deception.” Wring
in his weekly column for Monday's Daily Telegraph, he said “we
can still pull it back and get the Brexit we want.”
Dominic
Raab, who quit as Brexit secretary last week, noted that May's
government lacks the “political
will and resolve” to
defend the UK’s interests. “If
we cannot close this deal on reasonable terms, we need to be very
honest with the country that we will not be bribed and blackmailed or
bullied and we will walk away,” he
told the Sunday Times.
Despite
criticism of the agreement, May insisted that she will not quit her
office. “A
change of leadership at this point isn't going to make the
negotiations any easier and it isn't going to change the
parliamentary arithmetic,” she
told Sky News in an interview.
Amid
wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible
challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes
the chance of no-deal Brexit a very real possibility.
What
is BREXIT? / BREXIT News Explained
Blackstone
Intelligence
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