Thread by @paddydocherty

Quick thought on the short Yellowhammer doc just released. It is of course extremely alarming, and exposes the sheer madness of Brexit... I think we also need to remember... [cont]
😠✊🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺 #StopTheCoup #YellowHammer

...that this document will have been compiled by earnest and professional civil servants, striving to choose their words carefully and to be measured in their tone. That means that there could be a great deal of BATSHIT CRAZINESS contained in some of the assessments. [cont]

For example, “significant electricity price increases” - already alarming, but is “significant” 10%? 20%? For anyone on a modest income, even a 5% increase in an electricity bill might be unmanageable. [cont]
😠✊ #StopTheCoup 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺

On medicines: “...this will have an impact”... Hard to put a number on it, of course... Could mean a mere inconvenience, could mean supplies beginning to dry up and unquantifiable hardship/loss of life. #StopTheCoup

There is a “low” likelihood of disruption to water supply, affecting merely “100,000s” of people. We might, though, ask whether it’s acceptable for even *one* person to lose their water supply in one of the richest counties in the world. [cont]

The entirety of Para 8 is “Some cross-border UK financial services will be disrupted”. That tactful evasiveness could hide a multitude of deeply negative impacts.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the drafters attempt artful brevity in Para 13, but have to admit that there “may also be a rise in public disorder and community tensions”. Hard to quantify such forecasts, of course, but this fleeting treatment is not reassuring. 😠 #StopTheCoup

Overall, then, an alarming document on the face of it gets even more disturbing if you think of the possibilities behind the careful civil service language. How can the government do this to the country? 😠✊ #StopTheCoup #Yellowhammer 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺