Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

A no-deal Brexit won’t mean a shortage of medicines

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Covid-19 has hit us harder than just about any country in the world. Lockdown has been eased chaotically, and no one has any idea what the rules are any more. And now, on top of everything else, it looks as if we are about to run out of medicines if the government doesn’t mange to reach a trade deal with the European Union by the end of the year.

According to the Financial Times today, the UK is running dangerously low on stockpiles of essential pharmaceuticals, and might well run out just as a second wave of the coronavirus hits, probably next winter. We need to import lots of medicine from the rest of Europe, and the ‘crash out’ ideologues at Number 10 are putting us all at risk. There is a problem, however. It’s nonsense. There might or might not be a shortage of certain drugs. But that will be because there is, in case anyone hadn’t noticed, a pandemic. Leaving the EU won’t have anything to do with it one way or another.

Project Fear doesn’t have the same potency it once did. It can no longer trot out the governor of the Bank of England, the president of the CBI, and half a dozen FTSE chief executives, the way it once did. A bit like an ageing rock band, however, it occasionally gets itself back on the road for a re-tread of some of the old hits, even if you are not quite sure anyone’s heart is really in it anymore. This week’s tune? If we don’t reach a deal with the EU, presumably agreeing to what ludicrous demand Michel Barnier comes up, we will quickly run out of medicines.

Like many scares stories around leaving the EU, it does have a grain of truth.

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Matthew Lynn
Written by
Matthew Lynn
Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’

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