A wholesalers in Norwich appear to be stockpiling for a no deal Brexit.

A shopper, who does not wish to be named, was visiting Makro Wholesalers at the Broadland Business Park when he spotted crates of canned food and drink with a label attached that read 'Brexit' and recorded a batch number, a date, and a quantity.

The shopper said: 'I asked one of the workers why is that, and they are preparing for Brexit in case we crash out on April 12.'

A spokesman for Tesco, which owns Makro via its take-over of Booker, described the labelling of the crates with 'Brexit' as 'a local initiative in one store', but explained that Tesco and the Booker network are looking at opportunities to improve stockholding.

In a January trading statement, Tesco Group chief executive Dave Lewis said: 'What we've done is pretty much what you would expect, we've looked at all of the product categories.

'We looked at those categories that matter most to customers.

'We've looked at the life cycle of those particular products and also the production and where they're produced and imports, all of that detail. 'We have worked with all of the suppliers in that category to literally sit down and say, what is their productive capability, how much stock have they built if they've built some, where do they hold that stock.

'If they're holding it, do we need to hold it? And so on and so forth.

'And we've worked through every single category in the big volume lines and built deliberate plans for each of them and we'll use our network and their network as appropriate as we develop into the end March.

'So I think that's what I mean when I say it's good quality, very objective rational planning.

'I don't think it's right to sort of give a total number to that.'

MPs again rejected a series of alternatives to Theresa May's Brexit deal on Monday night.

A call for a customs union after Brexit was defeated by just three votes, a referendum on any deal was rejected by 12 votes, the Common Market 2.0 plan lost by 21 votes and cancelling Brexit to prevent a no-deal scenario was defeated by 101.

The failure of any option to gain a majority left the UK no clearer about its direction with the prospect of a no deal Brexit on April 12.