There are plans in place for the Royal Family if things get dicey with unrest and riots in London next month when the UK leaves the EU if there is a “no deal” Brexit. Plans like these have been in place since the Cold War’s Cuban Missile Crisis and are considered a “worst case” scenario with riots and a shortage of food and medicine.
The Queen and members of the Royal Family will be evacuated out of London to safe locations if things deteriorate according to various media reports.
The Sunday Times spoke to an unnamed source in Cabinet Office who said, “These emergency evacuation plans have been in existence since the Cold War, but have now been repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit.”
A former protection officer agreed with the anonymous source from the Cabinet Office. Dai Davies, a former police officer who was previously in charge of the protection of the Royal Family, also told the Sunday Times, “If there were problems in London, clearly you would remove the royal family away from those key sites.”
However, in the Mail on Sunday, Conservative Brexit supporter, Jacob Rees-Mogg called it a “wartime fantasy.”
“The over-excited officials who have dreamt up this nonsense are clearly more students of fantasy than of history. The Monarch’s place is always in the capital, as the late Queen Mother, wife of George VI, made very clear during the Blitz,” he explained.
Plans during the Cold War were called “Operation Candid” and had the royals transferred to different country homes in stage one with a later stage moving them to the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Buckingham Palace and Downing Street have not commented on the story due to security concerns.