Inside the Brexit Bunker

“I don’t know about you, but I spent my weekend preparing my Brexit Bunker. Believe me, it is time well spent. We all need to be prepared for the disaster of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit as it edges ever closer,” Fifty two year old Staines resident Ralph Thobb has told The Sleaze. “We all know that May’s Brexit deal is going to be rejected by parliament, she’ll refuse to have a second referendum and the foaming at the mouth Brextremists like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg and Andrea Leadsom will succeed in pushing us all over the edge into the ‘No Deal’ scenario. So, when all flights to and from Europe are suspended, medical supplies become unobtainable and the lorries trying to get across the channel at Dover are backed up as far as Maidenhead, I’ll be safe in my Brexit Bunker, enjoying all that food and medicines I’ve been stockpiling down there!” Thobb is one of a growing number British citizens, worried at what they see as the potentially catastrophic consequences of the UK crashing out of the EU without a trade deal, who are taking extreme measures to safeguard their futures. “We’re taking our cue from the US ‘Preppers’, you know, the guys who reckon that civilisation is on the verge of collapse due to nuclear war or alien invasions,” he explains. “So, to be prepared, or ‘Prepped’, they stockpile tons of tinned food, ammunition and guns in their basements, which they also secure with heavy steel doors. Some of them are lead lined and have air filters installed so as to protect from radioactive fall out.”

Thobb admits the situation in ‘soon to be Brexit Britain’ is slightly different. “When I say that I’ve been stockpiling stuff ‘down there’, it implies I’ve converted my cellar into the Brexit Bunker,” he says. “Except, of course, that this house has never had a cellar. But I didn’t let that deter me – I lifted the floor boards in the front room and excavated downwards. It has taken a few months and disposing of the earth I’ve dug out hasn’t been easy – there’s a pile of it in the back garden so high that it is blocking the light to my sitting room window – but it has been worth it.” Thobb admits that underground bunkers aren’t the only option for those seeking to survive a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. “A lot of the ‘Preppers’ have remote log cabins out in the wilderness, instead,” he enthuses. “Of course, out in places like Montana, you can set up a place like that and not have any neighbours for hundreds of miles, but it is a bit more difficult here in the UK – for one thing, you’d probably never get planning permission.” Instead, some Brexit ‘Preppers’ have adapted their back garden sheds, turning them into fortresses. “I did think about it,” admits Thobb. “But even with two padlocks and chicken wire over the windows, it just didn’t feel secure. Besides, where would I have put the lawnmower?”

Thobb’s home made bunker is, he claims, well stocked with the essentials for surviving post-Brexit. “I’ve stocked the bunker full of good British stuff like tinned Bully Beef, Cadbury’s Smash, Fray Bentos pies and packets of Bisto,” says Thobb. “I’ve spent hours going round the local supermarkets filling up trolleys with tins of corned beef, Spam, Marmite and all the other stuff which has made this country great. I’m confident that, with stuff like that stacked from floor to ceiling, I’ll be able to survive for months, if not years.” Thobb has also been stockpiling pharmaceuticals, amidst fears that supplies of medicines might be disrupted by a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. “Obviously, they are mainly non-prescription stuff,” he reveals. “I’ve got stacks of aspirins, boxes of Lemsip and hundreds of bottles of Corvonio cough syrup. Not to mention the stacks of laxatives which will be essential if I’m forced to survive on all that stodgy tinned food I’ve hoarded.” Thobb has managed to accumulate some prescription medicines by cutting down the dosages of the blood pressure and anti-diabetes pills he takes over the last year. “It was worth a couple of weeks of dangerous illness every month to ensure peace of mind for the future,” he opines. “Now I’m confident that I can ride out any temporary interruptions of my prescription medicines when Brexit hits.”

Not all Brexit ‘Preppers’ are just stockpiling food and pharmaceuticals. According to Thobb, some are hoarding pornography. “There’s a bloke on the other side of town who has built a vault he’s got filled with high quality continental smut – movies, magazines, the lot – as he’s convinced that, come Brexit and the closure of our borders, it will become impossible to obtain unless you are prepared to pay premium prices,” he reveals. “I’ve also heard talk of people considering caging up foreign hookers in their basements, in case they get scarce. Personally, I think that’s going too far – I’m planning on turning to blow up dolls if necessary. Mind you, you have to be careful how you store them, otherwise the rubber they’re made from might perish. There’s nothing worse than a flaccid sex doll which sounds like it is farting when you go down on it.” Thobb also reports that there are wild rumours of some Brexit ‘Preppers’ stockpiling huge quantities of illegal drugs as fears grow that Brexit could disrupt their distribution. “Let’s face it, if there are tougher border controls, then there is a greater chance that shipments will be detected by the authorities,” he muses.

Thobb concedes that he and his fellow Brexit ‘Preppers’ might well have to defend their bunkers, post Brexit, from hordes of desperate and starving Brexit ‘zombies’. “Obviously, unlike the American ‘Preppers’, we don’t have access to firearms. Mind you, the usual anti-zombie advice of ‘Shoot them in the head’ obviously doesn’t apply to Brexiteers as they don’t have any brains to blow out. Anyway, we’re having to improvise,” he told us. “That’s why I’ve got all that Bisto. I mean, you didn’t think I was going to eat it – I’d never get that desperate. I instead intend to use the red hot gravy I make from it like boiling oil and pour it from the bedroom windows over any marauding Brexiteers who approach my house in search of supplies. Because we all know that they are the ones who won’t have prepared, so confident are they that a ‘No Deal’ Brexit will be a huge success. I’ve also adapted the letter box in the front door so that I can shove a stick with a burning rag on the end at them if the gravy fails to deter the Brexiteers when they stumble up, zombie-like, mumbling ‘Brexit, we want our Brexit’.”