A NO-DEAL Brexit will make the UK a “paradise” for speculators, spivs and smugglers to make money out of medicine shortages, warns Gordon Brown.
The former prime minister argues that, if the country crashes out of the EU without a deal, speculators will “cash in” by stockpiling food and medicines amid the predicted shortages.
Brown urged Boris Johnson “to curb and punish speculators, spivs and smugglers profiteering from the miseries” when he addressed the annual conference of Scottish councils in St Andrews today.
Arguing that the UK is dependent on Europe for one million medical consignments a day and 30% of our food supplies, Brown said that profiteering from post-Brexit problems “will ultimately affect millions of ordinary people across Britain”.
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Brown told the Cosla delegates that the October 31 deadline could become “a spivs’ and speculators’ paradise”, adding: “Speculators are poised to swoop on stockpiles of medicines and food supplies and to profit from a hit to the pound, and even from the sale of carbon credits that were originally designed to protect our environment.
“It is inevitable that we will see a return of ‘the spiv’, as speculation around food and medicine shortages and the falling pound are guaranteed to reward them handsomely.
“Already Ash Soni, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, has said he has never seen so many commonly used drugs affected by shortages ... even food is set become a plaything.”
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