What Boris Johnson’s no-deal ‘nightmare scenario’ squad portends for post-Brexit Britain

Downing Street unit to coordinate response to trio of feared threats to newly independent UK

Boris virtual
Prime minister battles to quiet rumblings of discontent in his party as talks with EU falter at final hurdle

Boris Johnson has quietly assembled a Downing Street unit to organise the government’s response to a “nightmare scenario” of a no-deal Brexit, a surge in Covid-19 cases and winter flooding, Whitehall sources have revealed.

The “winter control and coordination cell” will be based in No. 10 and will provide daily confidential briefings to the prime minister on the trio of feared threats in the months ahead, The Times reports.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.