A no-deal Brexit may lead to deficits of at least one household essential, toilet roll because some toilet paper supplies might not endure long-term border delays or panic buying in the event of Britain crashing out of the EU.
Essity, which produces the Velvet and Cushelle toilet paper labels for the UK market, said it was developing robust emergency plans across its supply chain to cope with no deal, but cautioned that stocks were not limitless.
The company produces tissue in the United Kingdom and said it had built stocks of raw materials and spare parts to ensure supply in the event of short term border delays. It’s also holding stocks of finished products that are imported or exported between the United Kingdom and the EU.
The company’s comments followed Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards using a written question in Parliament to ask ministers for details on how long stocks of toilet paper will last in a no-deal situation and the Cabinet Office minister Simon Hart said the UK Government was striving to ensure the best possible preparation to maintain the flow of goods, a response that Jonathan Edwards labelled as farcical given the absence of assurances.
As far as possible, Essity is developing strong contingency plans across the entirety of their supply chain to alleviate any short term risks following a no-deal or hard deal of the EU but in the event of a no-deal, the Government will prioritise the movement of goods at the border while proceeding to take a risk-based approach to controls and checks on goods to reduce further friction.
But Mr Edwards said that this was the farcical level that we’ve fallen to and the British Government can no longer or even ensure we have the needed supplies of toilet paper in a crash-out Brexit because the Government are already willing to flush the economy down the toilet, but now we won’t have the paper to clean up after.
And as much as this revelation lends itself to toilet entertainment, it displays the grave destruction a no-deal Brexit would do, even to our most fundamental supplies but of course, MPs won’t run short of bum wipe because they all talk a load of crap anyway but don’t panic there are loads of copies of the Labour manifesto available because quite honestly this country is going down the pan.