Operation Yellowhammer Is A “Back Of An Envelope Job” That Presumed Worst-Case Scenario, Says Iain Duncan Smith

12 September 2019, 19:53

The government didn’t “at any stage” talk to European authorities when writing Operation Yellowhammer and just presumed the worst-case scenario, Iain Duncan Smith MP told LBC.

“On Yellowhammer, I’ve got it in front of me," he said, "People think this is some incredible worthy document. It’s not. What it is was a bunch of officials were told, go and have a look at what you think could be reasonably the worst-case scenario."

“So in paragraph three for example, they come up with the idea that you won’t get through Calais, because Calais could decide that they have to stop everybody whose papers are not absolutely right and they’ve got no room in Calais.

“I actually listened to an early briefing of this, under privy council terms, which I will now breach, and tell you when we sat and listened to this, some few months ago, as they were preparing it, I asked them a simple question.

“I said, ‘Did you at any stage in the course of that area talk to Calais authorities, about what they are doing?’ There was a shuffling of feet and complete silence, and I said, ‘You didn’t, did you?’ They said they weren’t asked to. I said, ‘Don’t be so damn stupid.’"

The MP explained that the Head of Calais Ports are already building an inspection point and had confirmed to Duncan Smith "there will be no stoppage. They will not, and they said, stressed, no matter what arrangements are made, they will not stop trucks more than they do at the moment."

He continued, “Flow is everything to them and they guaranteed that. If they had asked them that, paragraph three would have gone, medicine stuff threats would have gone, all the issues about food and fresh food would have gone.

“This is the point about Yellowhammer. It was a deliberate attempt to try, and again, make it sound like this is a reasonable case. It is not reasonable to make an assumption about things that might happen, without talking to the other side to figure out what will happen.”

Nick then asked whether the MP thinks Yellowhammer is politically motivated or biased.

Iain Duncan Smith replied, “There is no question in my mind, when it was asked for, they gave it very strict instructions: do not go and talk to anyone else, make this on your own basis, of what you think might go wrong. This to me looks very much like a back of an envelope job. I could do this in half an hour.”

Watch the insightful monologue above.