With around 100 days until Britain leaves the European Union and no sign of its Parliament agreeing to an exit deal, the British government said on Tuesday that it would ramp up contingency plans for a disorderly or chaotic departure, including measures to put 3,500 troops on standby.

The government says it still expects to secure an agreement on withdrawal, known as Brexit, which would allow for a 20-month transition period during which little would change.

But fear of a more brutal rupture that could clog ports, starve factories and disrupt supplies of food and medicines is growing as the March 29 deadline for departure creeps ever closer.

It did not escape notice that the government’s deliberations were being advertised more openly than in past months, when it discussed almost everything in secrecy. That led to speculation that Tuesday’s decision might be a ploy to persuade a truculent Parliament to endorse the unpopular exit deal struck by Prime Minister Theresa May, ahead of a critical vote on the plan now expected during the week of Jan. 14.

At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, ministers approved $2.5 billion in spending for borders, security and international trade, while other plans could include booking space on ferries to secure food supplies.

The government intends to advise 140,000 companies about preparations, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told the BBC on Monday that the need to stockpile drugs had made him the world’s biggest buyer of refrigeration space.

Gavin Williamson, the defense secretary, said on Tuesday that he would have “3,500 service personnel held at readiness, including regulars and reserves, in order to support any government department on any contingencies they may need.”

Some of this work has become inevitable because of the latest delays in Parliament after Mrs. May postoned a vote on her Brexit plan last week, fearing that it would be rejected overwhelmingly. Critics accuse Mrs. May of trying to run down the clock, seeking to make it impossible for Parliament to consider alternatives to her deal.

Businesses are paying the price for Mrs. May’s tactics, and some are increasingly angry as confidence ebbs and investment decisions are put off.

“With just 100 days to go, the suggestion that ‘no-deal’ can be ‘managed’ is not a credible proposition,” the heads of five business federations said in a statement. “Businesses would face massive new customs costs and tariffs. Disruption at ports could destroy carefully built supply chains.”

Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, a centrist and pro-European opposition party, said the increased pressure was “psychological warfare” intended “to scare members of Parliament, businesses and the public with the threat of a no-deal.”

If Britain does leave the bloc without an agreement, it would probably be as an accident, as the overwhelming majority of lawmakers oppose such a departure. But some pro-Brexit cabinet ministers are promoting the idea of what they call a “managed no deal,” under which the worst effects of a departure without an agreement would be mitigated.

Several experts are unimpressed, including Ivan Rogers, who was Britain’s top diplomat in Brussels until he resigned after being sidelined by Mrs. May.

“The reality is that if the deal on the table falls apart because we have said ‘no,’ there will not be some smooth rapid suite of mini side deals — from aviation to fisheries, from road haulage to data, from derivatives to customs and veterinary checks, from medicines to financial services, as the E.U. affably sits down with this prime minister or another one,” he said in a lecture at the University of Liverpool.

Instead, he said, the bloc’s other 27 nations “will legislate and institute unilaterally temporary arrangements which assure continuity where they need it, and cause us asymmetric difficulties where they can.”

According to British news media reports, the idea of a “managed no deal” was also dismissed by one cabinet member, David Gauke, the justice secretary, who reportedly described the approach as a “unicorn that needs to be slaughtered.”

That was a reference to claims by pro-Europeans that, in selling the idea of Brexit, hard-liners had repeatedly promised the British public the impossible.

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