Minister accidentally shows off secret documents showing details of ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ plan to cope with No Deal Brexit
PHILIP Hammond’s top secret plans to slash public spending across every single Whitehall department in a No Deal Brexit were accidentally leaked yesterday.
Classified papers detailing Operation Yellowhammer were flashed by Treasury Minister John Glen to photographers – they revealed the gloomy Chancellor say Minsters will have to find extra cash through cuts if talks with Brussels collapse.
A leaked document showing secret details of the Government’s contingency plans for BrexitSteve Back
The memo stated that departments would have to rely on “internal reprioritisation” as a first resort to cover the costs of messy withdrawal.
Opening up a fresh Brexit clash with Theresa May, as Downing Street sought to play down spending cuts last night Mr Hammond publicly confirmed the threat of swingeing cuts.
The Chancellor took the highly unusual step of commenting on a leak to say: “In no deal circumstances we would have to refocus Government priorities so that Government was concentrated on the circumstances that we found ourselves in.”
The cross-Whitehall Operation Yellowhammer has been coordinated by national security planners the Civil Contingencies Secretariat and is the most significant piece of No Deal planning to reach the public domain.
John Glen, left, was seen with the papers in Downing StreetSteve Back
The body was set up to deal with natural disasters and terrorism – in a sign of how seriously Ministers are now taking the threat of a messy divorce.
The name was generated at random by a computer and the very existence of a codeword means it had previously been kept secret from all but the very top of Government.
In a further gaffe last night a bungling CCS insider accidentally Tweeted the word “YELLOWHAMMER” in a social media blunder while monitoring the fallout from the leak.
It is the second time this week that eagle-eyed Downing Street photographers have caught Treasury documents – with warnings about a deal to sell Eurofighter...
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