THE CUPBOARDS OF JO ELGARF’S LONDON home are bursting with provisions. Dried foods, tinned meat, coffee, powdered milk, even detergent. “Anything that has a long shelf life,” she says.
The hoarding began a few months ago as British negotiators struggled to settle on the terms of the country’s impending divorce from the European Union. Tabloids blared the prospect of a “no-deal Brexit,” and doomsday scenarios quickly followed: gridlocked border crossings, strangled supply lines, grounded flights. The pound, analysts predicted, would likely tumble while food and medicine stocks thinned and Brits faced a host of new immigration restrictions. Elgarf, a 42-year-old mother of two, found herself stockpiling nonperishable goods and imported products.
And she’s far from alone. Elgarf moderates a Facebook group called 48% Preppers—a reference to the proportion of voters…