British police chiefs said Tuesday (18) they are preparing for a no-deal Brexit but warned that losing access to dozens of EU-wide tools will make it "harder" to protect UK and European citizens.
National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Chair Sara Thornton announced the creation of a new national unit to help her forces adapt to alternative data-sharing and cooperation systems.
But she warned the fallback options to tools like the European arrest warrant and Europol will be inferior.
"The fallbacks we're going to have to use will be slower, will be more bureaucratic and it would make it much harder for us to protect UK citizens and... EU citizens," Thornton said.
"We are determined to do everything we can to mitigate that, but it will be hard."
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Martin, NPCC lead for Brexit, noted Britain is among the biggest EU contributors of intelligence and action on warrants -- and its absence would be felt on both sides of the Channel.
"Would we like to keep keep everything we have? Of course," he added.
Britain will leave the European Union on March 29, 2019, and has pressed to continue participating in up to 40 databases and mechanisms for sharing information and enacting cross-border arrests used by bloc members.
The EU has repeatedly warned it will lose access to the various tools.
London and Brussels are currently locked in negotiations to reach a withdrawal agreement, which would see Britain retain access during a 21-month transition period.
But both sides have also talked up the possibility of the country crashing out without any deal.
The new national operations centre, to be created through £2 million in Home Office funding and staffed by around 50 officers, will help British police transition to using replacements.
Police identified the key instruments that could be lost in a no-deal scenario as sharing real-time alerts for wanted criminals and the ability to map transnational terrorist and crime networks.
Police chiefs said certain heavily-used tools would be the most sorely missed.
They include the Schengen information sharing system, which British police checked 539 million times last year, and the European arrest warrant, which has led to over 10,000 individuals being returned to EU members since its rollout in 2004.
Future warrants would be pursued through a 1957 convention or bilateral agreements, police said.
No access to a European criminal records database could see a six-day average waiting time for suspects' records jump to 66 days under the fallback tool.
Charlie Hall from the NPCC said forces were preparing simulations for various Brexit-related outcomes, including changes in crime patterns and public disorder.
AFP
Kash Patel 201117-A-PZ314-002 
Some panic-stricken commuters reportedly considered jumping off the trains, but were eventually rescued safely (PTI photo)