Thread by @faisalislam

The really interesting thing about this latest Yellowhammer sighting/scoop in the Sunday Times is that the underlying assumption on No Deal freight flow (40-60%) cross Channel has significantly improved from March (13-25%)- as BBC reported last week... bbc.co.uk/news/business-…

https://twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1162852858565472256

basis for that improvement in freight flow is original assessment assumed French customs/ border officers would manually check every lorry & some satellite photos of ports, now the French have invested in IT systems, checking facilities, it has improved:

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1159155033948270592?s=21

However seems to have limited impact, according to Sunday Times account of latest Yellowhammer brief to Cabinet, on the social and economic consequences communicated to ministers. Indeed medicines suppliers see significant problems with a 20% reduction in flow, let alone 40-60%..

pretty sceptical about claim Yellowhammer document is “old” - they changed the disrupted freight flow assumption to 40-60% only recently. couldn’t be sure it was under Johnson as PM, but only occurred in past few weeks...

moved up from 75-87% to 50-70% in April to this in July

I know this because while I was preparing multiply sourced story they had improved assumption (to a still v bad number) - i then got news in late July it had been upped again, and that it had just occurred. We did the story on August 7th. To me, document is from the last month.

That said - this core number on freight flow (which was 75-87 last year and is now 40-60) - upon which all other scenarios are built, always been described in internal government documents as the “reasonable worst case scenario” - which is what I think CDL Gove refers to in tweet

Also S. Times specifically says it was “compiled this month” - if they’ve managed to publish entire document you’d imagine proof of date somewhere - how in that case does a former minister get hold of this document in order to leak it?

I’m confident now that this document is from the past month, under Johnson administration. Former ministers do not recognise the 40-60% number at its core - upgrade occurred v recently. So can not see how it’s possible this was leaked by a member of previous Government...

My sense having watched this stuff very carefully over months is that worries that were considered to have been dealt with in March have in fact now been added back in again.

Anyway, sure the lobby will get to the bottom of this...

There is a reference to checking with 4 councils in mid August - concerns about water which Defra said weren’t a problem for March put back in too. This to me seems to be a late July document from officials for new Johnson administration about how October 31st is diff from March.

Judging by the Conservative chairman and former Brexit minister James Cleverly’s interview on Today, no denial that document is from August 1st - he seemed to distinguish between the phrase “out of date” which he said was right phrase & “old” - though I think I heard him say both

most generous interpretation - officials might have prepared this for incoming Johnson admin - as I said, as a guide to why, despite less bad trade flow rates, October is more challenging for No Deal than March - and Govt think its announcements could change such assessments

BUT if dated Aug 1 that is just after announcement of an extra £2bn -did officials really not know about that?

And how can officials include mitigating effects from policies yet to be announced - eg customs trader autoenrolment/ funding I reported yday: bbc.co.uk/news/business-…