‘This isn’t project fear, this is project reality’ says bishop on Operation Yellowhammer

The Government has been forced to release details of its no deal planning from 2nd August.

The ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ document, described as the “reasonable worst case planning assumptions”, says there could be severe extended delays to medicine reaching the UK if plans aren’t put in place and that “low income groups will be disproportionately affected by any price rises in food and fuel’ if unmitigated.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Government is working “every day” to mitigate the potential effects.

Rt Rev Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds and the Church of England’s lead on Brexit, told Premier he was concerned with all of the Operation Yellowhammer document, but particularly the prediction that the poor would be hit hardest.

“We have an obligation to speak up for those who are least resilient to the sort of shocks that might be coming our way and we will keep doing this, even though it’s not very popular in certain circles,” he said.

“We have to have what’s been called a bias to the poor, but also, from Proverbs, [we have a duty] to open our mouth for the dumb, for those who don’t have a voice. At local level this means parishes and churches paying attention to the real needs locally of the poorest people – that might be to do with food banks, it could be to do those sorts of things but we need to keep our eyes open.”