COMMENT & ANALYSIS

What is ‘SENSITIVE’?  – The suppressed No Deal Impact report

This week’s Contempt Committee hearing followed the successful threat of contempt proceedings being used by MPs to force the release of Brexit-related Cabinet papers.

“It really would be to the eternal shame of the Conservative party if it were to continue to support a no-deal Brexit,” Soubry said.

The threat of contempt proceedings was made on Monday by the rebel-remainer Independent Group of MPs. The aim was to make public the latest government assessment of the impact of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit despite opposition from an increasingly defensive executive.

Now that it is finally out, the suppressed ‘No Deal’ report reveals a huge amount of information that the public, arguably, always had a right to know.

The report revealed that the government is behind schedule on almost ONE THIRD of ‘critical’ No-Deal projects, and revealed the projected £13bn cost to businesses of customs checks if the UK crashes out of the European Union.

Background

The No Deal Brexit impact assessment had been suppressed for at least two weeks. On 14 February Anna Soubry MP, prior to quitting the Conservatives, threatened a motion on the Government to release the report, saying that Cabinet MPs had “unsuccessfully made an argument in Cabinet” for it to be published.

Soubry said at the time that the Conservatives are the ‘party of Business’. She made an impassioned plea for the papers to be released, as some of her colleagues did not understand the impact that a ‘No Deal’ Brexit would have on the businesses they serve.

“It really would be to the eternal shame of the Conservative party if it were to continue to support a no-deal Brexit,” Soubry said.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for DExEU, Chris Heaton-Harris, responded by offering Soubry a meeting to discuss her concerns.

These talks had the effect of delaying Soubry’s efforts to release the information for two weeks, until this Monday, when the Independent Group threatened to bring Contempt proceedings if the crucial information was not made public.

Partly as a result of the recent Parliamentary rebellion, the damning Whitehall assessment of the Government’s No Deal planning is now the public domain.

Please follow our investigation ‘In Contempt: Democracy in Darkness’. You can send any tips to alex.v.winter@pm.me,