Sir Bernard Jenkin, a leading Brexiteer, compared the scaremongering and alarm about the UK’s looming departure with the the fuss about the millennium bug (file pic)
The EU is risking street riots across Europe and imperiling public safety if it continues to stubbornly refuse to do a Brexit deal, leaders today warned.
Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin said that furious farmers will take to the streets to vent their fury if Brussels lets the UK crash out of the bloc and then slaps hefty tariffs on trade.
He compared the scaremongering over the consequences of Britain’s looming departure to the unfounded fears that the millennium bug would send all computers into meltdown.
Meanwhile, in a leaked letter, police leaders have warned that no deal could put the British public at risk if the EU follows through on its threat to evict the UK from its policing databases.
In the letter, sent to Home Secretary Sajid Javid and leaked to The Guardian, police chiefs urge the Government to do more to prepare the country for crashing of the bloc.
The warnings come amid growing fears that Britain will not get a Brexit deal – with International Trade Secretary Liam Fox saying the odds of no deal were now 60 to 40 because of Brussels’ stubbornness.
Theresa May’s official spokesman said the UK had taken a ‘significant’ step in drawing up its Chequers plan and said the EU must now respond.
Sir Bernard told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘What will happen to the quarter of Dutch poultry farmers who sell their goods to the UK or the one fifth of Spanish tomatoes that come to the UK – what will happen to those producers of the EU insists on putting up all these barriers?
‘There would be rioting in the streets at this perverse behaviour.’
He added: ‘The industry is feeding the Government with this diet of gloom and alarm and despondency.
‘Actually, it’s unnecessary and we will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, a bit like the millennium bug.’
He hit out at reports that the UK will have to stockpile drugs in preparation for no Brexit and said that Britain sells more medicines to the EU than vice versa.
Meanwhile, in a letter market ‘official, sensitive’, police chiefs have warned Mr Javid that public safety could be put at risk if no deal is done.
The letter, from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) cross-party Brexit working group, says British officers use 32 different security mechanisms which operate through the EU.
This includes the European Arrest warrant – which allows criminal suspects to be arrested and extradited around the continent – and several databases.
The letter says: ‘Considerable additional resource would be required for policing to operate using non-EU tools and that such tools would be suboptimal – potentially putting operational efficiency and public safety at risk.
‘Recruitment, vetting and training of staff to use these tools would take a substantial amount of time.

Police chiefs have written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured) to warn of the policing dangers of a no deal Brexit

A spokesman for Theresa May (pictured with her husband Philip arriving for a church service near to her Maidenhead constituency yesterday morning) said Liam Fox was right to point out the risks of a no deal Brexit
‘We are therefore concerned that a ‘no deal’ scenario could cause delays and challenges for UK policing and justice agencies.’
The letter adds: ‘These shared tools, measures, initiatives and capabilities which have been developed over the last 40 years of cooperation across the EU have saved many lives.
‘We must find ways to protect these mutually important capabilities when the UK leaves the EU in order to ensure the safety and security all our citizens.’
Mrs May has repeatedly said that the UK wants to maintain a close security relationship with the bloc after Brexit.
And she has warned the EU not to let their own stubborn commitment to their ideological red lines undermine the ability of European and British police and security forces cooperating to protect their citizens.
Her official spokesman today repeated that warning as he said that Dr Fox ‘is right to say there is a risk of the negotiations not succeeding’ – although he said No10 still believes a deal is the most likely option.
He also pointedly said that Mrs May has previously warned that ‘rigid institutional restrictions or deep seated ideology’ must not be a block to getting a good deal.
The comments come amid reports that ministers have warned the EU it could be breaking its own rules if it refuses to compromise and get a deal on Brexit.
Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty – one of the key legal texts which governs how the EU operates – says the bloc should ‘aim to develop an area of propensity and good neighbourliness with neighbouring countries’.
Whitehall sources reportedly said that if the EU does not abandon its stubborn negotiating stance and try to broker a deal then it may be flouting this obligation.
The warnings come amid growing fears that the UK could crash out of the EU at the end of next march without a deal.
In an outspoken intervention at the weekend, Dr Fox – a leading Brexiteer – said ‘the intransigence of the commission is pushing us towards no deal’.
Asked today what the PM thought of his comments, her official spokesman said: ‘We continue to believe that a deal is the most likely outcome because reaching a good deal is not only in the interests of the UK it is in the interests of the EU ad its 27 members.
‘But the Trade Secretary is right to say there is a risk of the negotiations not succeeding, and the Government has to prepare for all eventualities.’
And he said that Britain had come up with a working compromise in the Chequers deal – and that the ball is now in the EU’s court.’
He said: ‘Following the publication of the white paper, we are now in a serious conversation across a broad range of issues with the EU.
‘They recognise the white paper represents a significant move by the UK ad now they need to respond.
‘The Prime Minister has in the past set out the importance of being pragmatic and practical in the negotiations.
‘For example, in her Munich security speech, she said ‘this cannot be a time where any of us allow competition between partners, rigid institutional restrictions or deep seated ideology to inhibit our cooperation and jeopardise the security of our citizens’.
In an interview with The Sunday Times , Dr Fox said he believed the risk of a no-deal scenario had increased.
He pinning the blame on the European Commission and Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

The UK appears set to crash out of the European Union without a Brexit deal due to the ‘intransigence’ of the Brussels machine, Liam Fox (pictured) has claimed
He said: ‘I think the intransigence of the commission is pushing us towards no deal.
‘We have set out the basis in which a deal can happen but if the EU decides that the theological obsession of the unelected is to take priority over the economic wellbeing of the people of Europe then it’s a bureaucrats’ Brexit – not a people’s Brexit – then there is only going to be one outcome.’
He said Mr Barnier had dismissed the UK’s proposals in the Chequers plan thrashed out by Mrs May and the Cabinet simply because ‘we have never done it before’.
Some in the Government believe that the EU could be found to have flouted its own rules unless it tries to come up with a compromise on Brexit.
A Whitehall source told The Daily Telegraph that under Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty the EU has an obligation to seek a cooperative relationship with its neighbours.
And they pointed out that the bloc’s current refusal to compromise on its own red lines and do a deal can be viewed as flouting this requirement.
But legal experts have pointed out that the clause only requires the EU to aim to develop an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness with its border countries.
Academics say that while the treaty suggests deals can be done with countries, it does not require the bloc to do them.
They said this would make any legal case against the EU incredibly difficult to bring.
But a Whitehall source said the UK will make it clear that the finger of blame should be pointed squarely at the EU if no deal is done.
They told The Daily Telegraph: ‘We have made an offer that some people think is on the generous side and the EU has to know we are not kidding.

Theresa May held Brexit talks with Emmanuel Macron at his summer retreat on Friday as she seeks to win support for her Chequers plan
‘If they don’t like our offer they need to come back and say what the alternative is, but they can’t just keep stalling. ‘They also need to accept that we’ve done nothing wrong.
‘We left under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, which says they have obligations to help us.
‘The way they are behaving is making things difficult and if we end up with no deal we will make it clear whose fault it was.’
Ex Brexit Secretary David Davis told the newspaper: ‘The Lisbon Treaty requires them to come up with a workable arrangement and that’s certainly not the description of their behaviour at the moment.’
As fears of a no deal Brexit grow, Mrs May is bypassing the EU to hold talks with member state leaders directly.
She met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, cutting short her holiday to visit his summer retreat.
And ministers including Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab have also engaged in diplomatic activity in Europe in recent days as the in an effort to keep the Chequers plan alive.