Reporting on post-Brexit security risks comes with a price

Almost three years after the EU referendum, reporting the impact of Brexit on Britain’s security is still being dismissed as ‘project fear’

“Fire them all and let us have guns.” That was one of my Twitter followers’ responses to warnings that Brexit could see police officers restricted by red tape and make the UK a safer place for criminals.

Several others accused me of propagating “project fear”, with one adding: “No one believes a word of it anyway.”

It was an unexpected response to an article quoting the national police chief lead on Brexit’s preparations for the event.

It is not in Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Martin’s interest to admit – as he did – that British citizens may be less safe after 29 March, or that some police forces are not ready to use the contingencies needed if the UK is kicked out of EU databases.

Far from pre-referendum scaremongering, this is a senior police officer’s factual assessment of the changes ahead following months of preparations.

Warnings over the security downgrade caused by Brexit date back to the 2016 referendum – being voiced by Theresa May herself – but officials reportedly found the argument “a struggle to sell” to focus groups. And so the issue faded from the public consciousness.

Members of the security establishment prefer to keep out of political debates, but are now speaking out amid increasing frustration at feeling disregarded by political leaders.

As the head of the Acro Criminal Records Office Rob Price told me last month: “You don’t want to say anything which is deemed to be sensationalist, but it comes to the point where nothing is being said [about security risks] at all.

“We’ve got a professional responsibility to say this stuff. None of us want to look back in three months’ time and hear ‘where were you? Why didn’t you tell us?’”

Law enforcement are talking and I will continue to report what they say. Brexiteers would do well to listen.

Yours,

Lizzie Dearden

Home affairs and security correspondent