The David Davis Dossier

889. Labour shortages. According to the FT, research by the UK in a Changing Europe and the Centre for European Reform think-tanks shows the post-Brexit UK economy is facing a shortfall of more than 300,000 workers as a result of ending free movement of labour with the EU. The assessment indicates that the ending of FoM was constricting the UK economy and “contributing significantly” to labour shortages in lower-skilled sectors, including logistics, construction and hospitality.

888. Cultural exchange. Workaway, a cultural exchange website which encourage exchanges between budget travellers and people learning languages has advised its members that it is “pausing a large portion” of UK host listings until further notice. The email went on to say that; “As regulations around travel and working visas have become much stricter post Brexit, especially for Europeans, it’s become unfeasible to continue listing exchanges in the UK.”

887. The economy. Figures calculated by Economics for the Environment Consultancy (Eftec) indicate that removing or watering down retained EU laws, as proposed by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, could cost the UK economy almost £83bn over 30 years in just four policy areas. Commissioned by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, the research investigated the economic implications of weakening or removing environmental retained EU laws covering chemical regulation, water pollution, air quality, and habitats.

886. Medicines. Paul Williams, senior director corporate of Teva UK, a global biopharmaceuticals company with an operation in Runcorn, has told a Lords committee that because the EU no longer accepts batch testing of medicines in the UK, products destined for Northern Ireland now have to be sent to Germany for testing before being shipped to the province. Mr Williams said, “until Brexit that factory would make products in Cheshire tested in Cheshire.”

885.Tax revenues. Potentially billions of pounds in tax have been lost because HMRC diverted a significant part of its workforce staff to focus on Brexit. Responding to ministerial questions, Treasury minister Victoria Atkins said 1,040 tax compliance officers, who would usually investigate tax dodging and non-compliance, were redeployed in 2021-22 to work on matters specifically relating to Brexit. The amount of tax revenue recovered through compliance work was £30.8 billion in 2021-22, down £6 billion from 2019-20, Ms Atkins said.

884. Competitiveness. According to survey carried out by Make UK (formerly the Engineering Employers Federation) among its members: “The number of companies believing the UK to be a competitive location has halved from last year, down to 31 per cent from 63 per cent. Over four in ten companies, 43 per cent, believe the UK is now less attractive to foreign investors, while more than half of companies, 53 per cent, believe that political instability is damaging business confidence.”

883. Dentists. A Norfolk dental surgery has put its recent struggles down to the impact of Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and the government changing how NHS dentists are paid. Beech House, based in Dereham, said it had been trying to recruit an NHS dentist for the past two years “without success.” An email sent to patients said: “Many dentists that fell into the European bracket had to hand back their NHS provider number when we left the EU, taking a big chunk of qualified NHS dentists with it.

882. Charitable sector. Charities based in Jersey say that Brexit has created an “absolute nightmare” of extra costs and added paperwork. Two aid workers fear this means they’ll have to scale back – or even stop – taking donations abroad. Leaving the EU means extra paperwork and checks for the goods a team takes by van across the Romanian border. Rose Pallot, founder of the charity Mustard Seed Jersey said: “I hope we can continue to send aid to Romania but at the moment we’re struggling with the logistics of it and the paperwork that is required.”

881. Seasonal workers. A European chalet business owner has spoken of how complicated it has become to recruit people from the UK to work in the Alps. Jana, from Montagne & Tradition in Les Gets, Haute-Savoie, says she has managed it this year but it has been expensive. She gave up completely in 2020-21 and has heard others locally saying they will now stick to recruiting EU citizens. Jana said it is easier to recruit from Australia and New Zealand, which have deals in place on seasonal work.

880. The NHS. NHS trusts in England have increased recruitment from low-income “red list” countries to make up for the post-Brexit loss of EU staff, despite a code of practice to safeguard health services in those developing countries. A report by the Nuffield Trust think-tank also identified shortages in vital specialist areas since Brexit, including dentistry, cardiothoracic surgery and anaesthesiology.It found that Brexit is still causing issues with the supply of medicines in Northern Ireland despite a change in the arrangements put in place by the EU last April.

879. UK citizens in the EU. Eurostat data shows a total of 2,285 UK nationals were expelled between 1 January 2021, when British citizens lost their free movement rights, and September last year. Not all expulsions may have been related to residency rules, but Prof Michaela Benson of Lancaster University, who has co-led several research projects on post-Brexit migration, citizenship and identity said, “British citizens are now third-country nationals in the EU and those who are not covered by the withdrawal agreement are subject to domestic immigration laws.”

December 2022 ⇓
878. Waiters. A London restaurateur has told The New York Times of the difficulties in recruiting kitchen staff and waiters for his three Italian restaurants after Brexit. Jordan Frieda, who worked briefly under the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, said: “It’s worse than Covid, worse than energy costs. It’s been the most traumatic event of my career in restaurants. It has been an absolutely devastating, transformative event.”

877. Biotech. A York-based bio-tech start up, Aptamer Group, has said that their biggest challenge is recruiting the right calibre graduates. COO Alastair Fleming said: “Hiring is difficult, even bringing in basic scientists. Brexit has affected us as well. We normally expect more Europeans.” Britain’s departure from the EU has created more paperwork, and waiting times of about six months for a work visa.

876. The economy. Brexit has “hobbled the UK economy”, according to CNN. Britain remains the only member of the G7 — the group of advanced economies that also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — with an economy smaller than it was before the pandemic. Uncertainty has damaged business investment, which in the third quarter was 8% below pre-pandemic levels despite a UK-EU trade deal being in place for nearly two years.

875. The economy. A new report from the Lords Economic Affairs Committee says Brexit and Covid have led to an exodus of 500,000 from the UK workforce putting the economy at risk. The committee warned that the labour outlook for the UK was “bleak” and said Brexit had also added to an acute shortage of workers in some industries – including hospitality, agriculture and care, according to the Lords’ economic affairs committee

874. Coastal ports. Latest figures from the British Ports Association show that in the 12 months to the end of September volumes going through the top 50 ports were down by 24 million tonnes from the pre-pandemic period in 2018-19. More than two thirds of the ports reported declines on pre-Covid levels. The biggest loser was Dover, the country’s largest roll-on/roll-off terminal for lorry freight, with volumes down by 21 per cent. The association’s report states: “The recovery of RoRo freight volume after the pandemic has been slower and reflects in part the impact of Brexit on some supply chains.”

873. Charities. An analysis of government funding intended to replace EU support, shows delays have forced hundreds of voluntary organisations to shut up shop or scale back their operations, The Guardian has learned, as the consequences of Brexit continue to ripple out across the UK. Matthew Brown, director of operations at The Wales Council of Voluntary Action (WCVA), a national umbrella organisation involving many charities that relied on money from the EU social fund, said: “We’re all having to lay off staff because the UK SPF has not come in on time.”

872. Cannabis Oil. Voyager, a Perth-based manufacturer of oils and soaps made with cannabidiol, has been forced to purchase a £1.5 million plant in Poland to serve European customers to avoid extended delivery times and the costs of customs charges after Brexit. Founder Nick Tulloch said: “Going forward our product can now be manufactured in Poland and distributed across the European Union’s single market.”

871. Government Cars. The government’s fleet of armoured ministerial cars will be made by Audi in Germany because supply chain issues hampered by Brexit mean no British manufacturer is able to meet its requirements, according to The Independent. The Metropolitan Police had announced this summer it is ditching armoured Jaguar XJs for Audi A8s assembled in Baden-Württemberg. But it has now been revealed that the decision was made because no British car maker was “able to meet the requirements of the tender.”

870. The economy. Analysis by the Centre for European Reform (CER) suggests that Brexit is costing the UK government £40 bn a year in lost tax revenue. The study claims that Brexit had reduced Britain’s GDP by 5.5% by the second quarter of 2022. In the three months to June, economic output was £33 billion lower than it would have been had the UK voted to stay in the EU, costing the government around £12 billion in lost tax revenues, or around £40 bn for the whole year.

869. The environment. Documents published by the environment agency on Thursday show the target date for cleaning up the majority of England’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters suffering from a cocktail of agricultural and sewage pollution has been pushed back from 2027 to 2063. Until Brexit the UK government was signed up to the EU water framework directive, which required countries to make sure all their waters achieved “good” chemical and ecological status by 2027 at the latest.

868. Industry. A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) shows that more than half (56%) of BCC members surveyed who trade with the EU said they had experienced problems complying with new rules for exporting goods, while 45% reported issues trading in services. Overall, as many as 77% of firms trading under the deal said it had not helped them to increase sales or expand. DG Shevaun Haviland, said: “The longer the current problems go unchecked, the more EU traders go elsewhere, and the more damage is done.”

867. EU citizens. The UK government’s scheme to settle millions of EU citizens risks creating illegal migrants overnight and is unlawful, the High Court has ruled. The court said the scheme breached the UK’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. The Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), had argued that ministers were breaking the legal promises given to the EU and huge numbers of people could become illegal immigrants overnight if they didn’t apply for the second stage on time.

866. Tourism: The number of visitors arriving at a UK port from France has more than halved after Brexit, according to Brittany Ferries. Portsmouth saw 338,000 arrivals in 2019 but only 155,000 in 2022. The firm said “Brexit-related friction” including a need for passports was a major factor. Sailings to and from Ireland, within the European Union, had seen business increase.

865. NHS: A study by the Nuffield Trust warns that Brexit is damaging the NHS and increasing pressure on overstretched services. The new report claims that Britain’s departure from the EU has worsened recruitment shortages while pushing up the price of some medicines and making some more difficult to obtain. Mark Dayan, Brexit programme lead at the Nuffield Trust, said, “the effects of Brexit appear to have added to the severe challenges and problems the NHS currently faces”.

864. Christmas markets: The number of businesses at Christmas markets in Britain has slumped by more than a fifth since Brexit, according to local authority figures obtained by Best for Britain and published in The Independent. UK capitals saw some of the steepest downturns. London’s West End reported the largest decline, collapsing from 247 businesses trading in 2019 to just 119 this year. Best for Britain said it was clear that post-Brexit red tape was a major “deterrent” to seasonal traders coming from EU countries.

863. Customs: The chief executive of An Post in Ireland, in a letter to the FT, claims the UK Post Office is failing to implement required procedures for small items exported to the EU. David McRedmond says trade from Britain to Ireland sent through post channels has fallen by 52% in one year. An Post is having to return thousands of items to UK suppliers which fail customs checks. The impact is falling mainly on small businesses.

862. Travel industry: Mark Tanzer, chief executive of travel trade organisation ABTA, said plans to “sunset” thousands of EU laws retained after Brexit could “destabilise the travel industry”. The effect of removing consumer protections could be “profound”, he warned. “The dilution of denied boarding compensation is one area of potential consumer detriment, but more profound is the possible removal of consumer protections provided by the Package Travel Regulations (PTRs)”, Tanzer said.

861. Farming: The deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), says that “uncertainty” over the details of the replacement of the EU subsidy scheme is “crippling businesses”. Tom Bradshaw said, “If we get this wrong, what is going to happen to food production across the country? It will undermine the profitability of businesses, and their viability and ability to produce food. At a time of global challenge, we simply cannot afford that”.

860. EU citizens: In Limbo, a grassroots project to give a voice to 3.6 million EU citizens living in the UK, reports on a German citizen resident in Scotland who, returning from a three-day trip to France, was denied boarding at Paris airport by EasyJet acting on instructions from the UK Home Office. After taking a bus to Calais to meet the UK immigration officials, he was first detained and fingerprinted before it was found to be a case of mistaken identity.

859. Immigration: Employers are at ‘real risk’ of failing to attract skilled staff from overseas. A survey of more than 5,000 executives from 63 countries for the IMD’s annual World Talent Ranking reveals that the UK has fallen to 28th place as favourable destination for international professionals, due to the fallout from Brexit and recent political turmoil, concerns about the quality of life and the state of the education system.

858. Trade: The UK risks being ‘squeezed’ in a protectionist world according to the FT. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act contains provisions to spend $369bn on subsidies and tax breaks promoting green technology. This will not be open to non US companies and is being seen as a move towards the US adopting policies protecting and promoting their own industries to the detriment of imports. The EU is also said to be examining the possibility loosening its own state aid rules allowing it to pump more money green industry leaving the UK to miss out.

857. Manufacturing: D S Smith, a UK based manufacturer of cardboard packaging, is to close a plant in Aylesford, Kent while increasing investment in the EU. The decision was “very regrettable”, CEO Miles Roberts said, but the company had to “respond to the demand that’s there”. He added, that the group’s international business could not continue to subsidise UK operations and that it would be “extremely helpful” for manufacturers if the government aligned regulations “wherever possible” with EU rules to ease trade.

856. Drugs: The Scottish Daily Record claims that the drug Lecanemab, said to be a new wonder pill which can slow down Alzheimer’s disease, could take several years be approved for use in the UK. Dr Emma Law of the Scottish Dementia Clinical Research network warned: “Brexit will hold it back. It will first of all go to America with the FDA and then it will go to Europe. And only then it will come to the UK.” Existing trade deals between the EU and US could see the drug fast-tracked for use in the rest of Europe.

855. Automotive industry: According to the FT, UK Carmakers are warning that the prices of many electric vehicles made or sold in the UK and Europe could jump 10% or more from 2024 after Brussels said it would not extend tariff exemptions agreed in the Brexit trade deal. The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) temporarily exempted EVs from rules stating that products must be substantially made in Britain or the bloc to qualify for the EU’s zero tariff, zero quota regime because such a large proportion of EV batteries are imported from Asia.

854. The economy: The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has told the government that business investment has effectively stagnated since the Brexit vote in 2016. The trade organisation representing 190,000 businesses has called on ministers to “unlock” business investment through inter alia a more flexible immigration system and updating the national planning policy framework to ease restrictions around the use of land for development.

853. Meat: A Wishaw based butcher, Andrew Duff, claims it is now easier to export to Hong Kong than it is to Europe. Duff said his EU business was now economically unviable. “When we did an entire costing I would have to put an extra £1000 onto the bill due to all the additional admin and red tape. When you’re a small SME and you’re not sending out 4-5 pallets, maybe one pallet of maybe 500kg of very specialist meat, putting £1000 onto that means it’s impossible”, he said.

852. Clearing: Under draft proposals issued by the EU Commission on Wednesday (7 Dec), financial firms will be required to clear a proportion of “systemic” derivatives via active accounts in EU clearing houses. The minimum requirement will be set by the EU regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority, one year after the law is adopted. An EU official said the legislation meant it was “less likely” that the commission would extend a temporary deal that allows London’s clearing houses to continue serving customers in the bloc. See also 797, 502 and 267.

851. Industry: A majority of 938 companies surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce could not name a single EU law that they would change or remove to become more profitable, according to The New Statesman. Just 14% specified an EU regulation they would remove; 58% of firms had no preference over the amendment or removal of any EU regulation. Half said that deregulation is either a low priority or not a priority at all.

850. Food prices: Research by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the LSE studied trade flows and consumer prices for food products in the UK to identify the transfer of the cost of Brexit red tape to householders. It found that leaving the EU has “increased the price of food products by 3% a year, leading to a 6% increase over a two-year period”. The CEP found that Brexit-induced price rises added £5.84bn cost to the food market alone, equating to £210 per household.

849. Skills shortage: The Bank of England’s chief economist says Brexit has contributed to a skills shortage that is driving the economy’s weak performance compared with other countries. Huw Pill, speaking to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, said that it was not yet clear whether the record numbers of migrants from non-EU countries were as productive as those from the EU who had been lost since Brexit. “Some of the skills shortages were being met by the inflow, on a relatively flexible basis, of [EU] workers and that has changed and disappeared”, Pill said.

848. Legal actions: A report by the pro-Brexit group Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB) claims the EU have initiated legal proceedings sixteen times since the UK exited the EU on 31 January 2020. The CIB is critical of the withdrawal agreement and says, “The simple fact is that the United Kingdom is still subject to EU law.” These form part of the 27 active ‘infringement cases’ which the EU Commission is pursuing against the United Kingdom, 11 of which started before we left.

November 2022 ⇓
847. Doctors: According to an analysis by the Nuffield Trust health think-tank, Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS. The disclosure in The Guardian shows the UK has 4,285 fewer European doctors than if the rising numbers coming before the Brexit vote in 2016 had been maintained. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians.

846. The economy: Six years on, Brexit is still proving the biggest headache for British businesses, according to a survey by Ivalua reported by Bloomberg. Brexit ranks even higher than Russia’s war in Ukraine, Covid or rising energy costs. Almost a third of businesses said they had lost revenue as a result of the disruptions, estimating an average drop of around 18%, and around two thirds said they had either been fined or suffered reputational damage as a result of goods arriving late.

845. Trade: Researchers, from the Centre for Business Prosperity at Aston University have found that more than 40% of British products previously exported to the EU have disappeared from European shelves since Brexit. They warned that new bureaucracy was putting off exporters on a grand scale and described their findings as “bleak”. Small businesses were the least likely to be able to deal with the government’s new red tape and to be most likely to simply give up selling abroad.

844. British Nationals living overseas: A large number of British nationals settled in Denmark under EU rules in 2020 may not have received a reminder from Danish authorities to update their residence status ahead of a Brexit deadline at the end of December 2021, meaning many missed the deadline and could face having to leave the country.

843. Vegetables: Vegetables are being left to rot in fields due to ‘chronic’ crop picker and driver shortages according to The Daily Mail. A recruitment company which specialises in hiring food service supervisory and management roles, said government restrictions on foreign workers are to blame and is urging UK officials to let in ten times more foreign workers to solve the crisis. Guy Moreton, CEO of MorePeople said: “We need five to ten times as many people as the Government is letting in at the moment.”

842. EU laws: A letter to business secretary Grant Shapps signed by various trade bodies and the TUC has said sweeping away thousands of pieces of EU legislation and legal principles would “cause significant confusion and disruption for businesses, working people and those seeking to protect the environment”. The groups are concerned about the loss of “vital” worker, consumer and environmental rights, including those regarding holiday pay, safe working hours and protection from discrimination.

841. Butchers: Hull-based meat producer Cranswick, is flying 400 butchers more than 6,000 miles from the Philippines to avert a Christmas shutdown after an exodus of staff following Brexit. The company is spending £4mn to recruit the butchers to alleviate labour shortages. Last year, a staffing crisis hampered production and left Cranswick with 25% fewer staff at its plants in Hull and Norfolk.

840. Trade: Figures released by the Department for International Trade show that the free trade deal signed with Japan has resulted in a fall in exports since it came into force. Liz Truss signed the “historic” deal with Japan as trade secretary in October 2020, describing it as a “landmark moment for Britain”. In the year to June 2022 exports to Japan fell from £12.3bn to £11.9bn. Exports in goods fell 4.9% to £6.1bn and services fell 2% to £5.8bn.

839. Delicatessens: A Greek deli, The Isle of Olive in Hackney, said to be the best in London, is to close after 11 years. The owners blame a multitude of reasons but say “certainly Brexit is sitting right there at the top“. With reams of paperwork and with many small artisan producers across Greece refusing to export to the UK, it became difficult to source unique products and sell at reasonable prices.

838. Fishing: UK Fisheries confirmed last week that its 40m stern trawler Farnella will cease operations at the end of the year, after 22 years. The company cite a lack of quota opportunity and a ‘complete lack of support’ from UK authorities. The vessel was designed to work in the distant waters around Iceland, Faroes, and Norway. With the loss of access after Brexit the vessel was forced closer to home but has now become uneconomic.

837. Airports: The CEO of the company that owns Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports, said problems with recruitment were making the UK less competitive. Charlie Cornish, speaking at the Airlines 2022 conference in London, said: “There’s no doubt that Brexit has damaged the UK economy, 99% of leading economists would tell you that. You just have to look at the rate of growth now, and that’s significant.”

836. Economy: Former Brexit secretary David Davis has admitted that Brexit has failed to deliver any notable economic benefits, more than six years after the vote to leave the EU. Davis, a key figure in the campaign to leave the EU and heavily involved in the negotiations that followed blamed Covid for the absence of any gains from the upheaval. Asked if, amid growing calls for a change of course, he accepted that we haven’t seen any economic benefit for having left the EU, Davis replied: “No major ones.”

835. Economy: Following the chancellor’s budget statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) now say “rising prices [will] erode real wages and reduce living standards by 7 per cent in total over the two financial years to 2023-24 (wiping out the previous eight years’ growth), despite over £100 billion of additional government support”. Their trade forecast reflects the OBR’s assumption that Brexit will reduce the UK’s trade intensity by 15% in the long run.

834. Economy: A member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee has told MPs that Brexit has added 6% to UK food prices. Dr Swati Dhingra also said British workers had taken a 2% real terms cut in their wages due to the UK’s departure from the EU. Dr Dhingra appeared together with governor Andrew Bailey before the Treasury Select committee.

833. Trade deals: Former DEFRA secretary George Eustice has told MPS that the trade deal recently signed with Australia is “not actually a very good trade deal for the UK.” He claimed Britain went into the negotiation holding the strongest hand, the best cards but “overall the truth of the matter is that the UK gave away far too much for far too little in return.” For example, the UK gave both Australia and New Zealand full liberalisation in beef and lamb, while Australia maintains an absolute export ban for British beef.

832. Cheese. A British cheesemaker has been forced to sell his business to a larger rival to regain access to customers on the continent after Brexit saw a loss of £600,000 in EU sales. Simon Spurrell, MD of Macclesfield-based Cheshire Cheese Company, retains a stake in the business he sold to Joseph Heler Cheese, which has maintained a presence in the EU as a result of its larger operations and distribution hub in the Netherlands.

831. Fishing The MP for Gordon, Richard Thompson (SNP) has highlighted a report from an all-party parliamentary group on the UK Fishing industry which found “unwelcome detrimental impacts on livelihoods” as a result of Brexit. The report said that Brexit left the fishing industry and the wider seafood sector “crying foul in the wake of unexpected and unwelcome detrimental impacts on livelihoods, business turnover, labour, exports and access to fishing areas and quota”.

761. Eurostar: The CEO of Eurostar has written to the chair of the transport select committee to explain that passenger capacity at St Pancras has been cut from 2,200 passengers per hour to 1,500 because of extra passport checks required after Brexit, a fall of 30%. Jacques Damas said: “It is only the fact that Eurostar has capacity-limited trains and significantly reduced its timetable from 2019 levels, that we are not seeing daily queues in the centre of London similar to those experienced in the Channel ports. This situation has obvious commercial consequences and is not sustainable in the mid-to-long term.”

760. Dover: The port of Dover has warned that the new EU entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc. This could add up to ten minutes for a family of five in a vehicle on their first trip after EES is introduced, compared with about 45 to 90 seconds for border checks today and multiplying delays at the Channel ports.

759. Music industry: A report by UK Music, a body representing the British music industry, which is almost a third smaller than before the pandemic, is calling for a package of support including tax relief, a VAT cut for struggling venues and a streamlining of restrictions affecting workers and touring between Europe and the UK. The report complains of rampant inflation, soaring costs and Brexit red tape which threaten to derail its fragile recovery.

758. Spanish driving licenses: UK citizens living in Spain are furious over the delay in reaching a deal to end the ban on UK driving licences in Spain. A protest has been organised in Madrid next week. Britons who failed to convert their UK driving licences to Spanish ones by the December 2020 deadline, have found themselves banned from driving on Spanish roads since May. Talks are ongoing but no date has been set for a resolution.

757. US Trade deal: New prime minister Liz Truss has admitted a trade deal with the United States is unlikely to happen for many years to come. She told reporters on a flight to New York for a meeting of the UN General Assembly: “There [aren’t] currently any negotiations taking place with the U.S. and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.”

756. Northern Ireland farming: Sinn Féin MLA Declan McAleer has called for direct dialogue between the EU institutions and local representatives in Northern Ireland to resolve problems caused by Brexit on the province’s agricultural sector. Speaking at a round table event in the EU Parliament Mr McAleer said: “The Tory-imposed Brexit is having a hugely negative impact on farms, small businesses and wider society here in the north.”

755. Universities: The European University Institute (EUI) is an international organisation dedicated to social sciences and humanities founded in 1972 by the six original members of the then EEC. The UK government has now confirmed that an interim agreement allowing the UK to continue membership of the EUI comes to an end on 31 December 2022.

754. Ford Transit vans: Ford has admitted that Brexit has not helped the production of its electric E-Transit Custom. Hans Schep, general manager Ford Pro Europe, said: “Brexit is not making our life easier.” Schep said the Rules of Origin laws determining in which country a product was made, had increased red tape and caused delays in moving components between European markets. There could be different requirements covering Turkey, where Ford will build the E-Transit Custom and those in the UK, he added.

753. Customs: Twenty customs support officers recruited to deal with new border checks in Hull as part of a wider recruitment drive by the authority as it prepared for the post-Brexit changes, which were subsequently shelved by the government, have now been made redundant, it has been revealed. The government has delayed implementing new checks until the end of next year when it has pledged to introduce a new system of controls.

752. Buses: An Oxford bus company has warned of disruption to its services due to a lack of drivers which it blames on Brexit and Covid-19. Luke Marion, Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel interim MD, apologised and said, “here is a national shortage of bus drivers, caused by multiple factors including Brexit, retirements during Covid-19 and drivers leaving the industry to logistics jobs.”

751. Exports: As the government pushes for a pro-growth strategy, data from HMRC show the number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU fell by 33% in 2021 from 27,321 to 18,357. Michelle Dale, a senior manager at accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, told City A.M that the fall was due to the extra red tape UK businesses must now comply with when exporting to the EU. “Businesses are not getting enough support from the Government to navigate the post-Brexit trading minefield”, she said.

750. Exports: King & McGaw, a £10mn business based in Newhaven, which sells fine art prints online has all but stopped exporting to the EU because Brexit-related costs and bureaucracy. CEO Gyr King says, “If you can’t ship your goods into the biggest market on your doorstep, you have got to be shooting yourself in the foot”.

749. Trade: According to the FT, the latest trade figures from the ONS show that the UK’s trade in goods and services’ deficit, excluding precious metals, widened by £1.2bn to £27bn in the three months to July compared with the previous quarter, a near-record. Exports are likely to continue to struggle as external demand from key trading partners softens and Brexit trade frictions remain. Gabriella Dickens, economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, forecast that the trade deficit “will reach enormous proportions over the coming months” due to higher gas prices.

748. Customs: A group of Welsh cyclists travelling from Wales to Portugal to raise money for a prostate cancer charity have been forced to pay a tariff of €10,000 in Santander to release their bikes for the fundraising effort. Newly-appointed Leader of the House of Commons and former Trade minister Penny Mordaunt, criticised the Spanish authorities said the charge was “outrageous” and vowed to “do all I can to help to resolve and get compensation for the group”.

747. Insurance: A British couple in France have been told by Aviva that their life insurance policy is no longer valid because the firm can no longer operate in France due to Brexit. Kathleen Allen, took out the insurance on her husband’s life in 1991 while living in the UK. Her £44 per month premiums should have entitled her to £14,270 in the event of her husband’s death. Instead, Aviva has offered her a £600 surrender value.

746. Electricity cost: According to an analysis of wholesale electricity market prices, the loss of the integrated EU Internal Energy market added as much as £250mn to wholesale electricity costs in 2021 and is expected to add up to £440mn by the end of this year. This adds roughly 0.7% to the overall wholesale electricity cost, according to the consultancy Baringa, reported by the FT.

745. Dover: Kent County Council has called on the government to provide more cash to create better roads to support new customs controls for goods moving to and from the EU. Simon Jones, KCC’s corporate director for transport, said the changes would help the county “buy some time” to resolve long-term travel problems in and out of the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel, adding: “This will help us manage the current situation a little better and hopefully relieve some of the local road issues, which we see all too frequently.”

744. Electric vehicles: Britain’s bid to get Amazon-backed US company Rivian to begin manufacturing electric vehicles in the UK has stalled over the government’s plan to diverge from EU data protection laws. In a recent filing, the firm said Britain’s GDPR reforms posed a barrier to its proposed investment in a major plant in Britain. “Evolving and changing definitions of personal data and personal information within the EU, the United Kingdom may limit or inhibit our ability to operate or expand our business.”

743. Drax Power station: Drax which produces 11% of the UK’s renewable energy and is described as critical national infrastructure, said in its 2020 accounts filed last October that Brexit may create uncertainty and “extra costs in regulatory reporting or divergence in compliance requirements.” It also said Brexit introduced risks to their ability to influence EU policy on sustainability and may “make the company’s operations more complex and costly”.

742. Cucumbers: Britain’s cucumber capital in the Lea Valley north of London has seen over a third of growers give up and apply for planning permission for housing, warehouses and small factories, hit by by Brexit, labour shortages and rising energy costs, according to the Lea Valley Growers Association (LVGA). Lee Stiles, the LVGA secretary said, “The largest hub in the UK’s glasshouse sector could face extinction within the next two years, to be concreted over by houses and industry”.

741. Calais: Frustrated passengers queueing for hours to reach Dover have described fights breaking out in front of children following allegations of queue jumping at Calais. Passenger Nicholas Mohan told KentOnline he was delayed for seven hours when making the crossing on Friday. He said: “Ultimately it is the humble traveller and their families who continue to suffer.” See also 730 below.

740. Anglo-French ties: The Charles Peguy centre in London’s Brunswick Place, described as a magnet for the French in London, has become a casualty of Brexit. After six decades of assisting French people trying to find their feet in a new country, the centre has been forced to shut. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic played a small part but the principal cause is said to be the hard Brexit Britain chose as its departure route from the EU.

August 2022 ⇓
739. Football: New post-Brexit immigration rules are being blamed for preventing Fulham signing the Dutch player Justin Kluivert from Italian club Roma even after an £8mn transfer fee had been agreed. Kluivert failed to meet the criteria to move to the Premier League due to his lack of recent appearances for Roma and Fulham cannot appeal the decision.

738. EuroDisney: Channel Tunnel train operator Eurostar has blamed difficult economic circumstances plus the logistical implications of Brexit for cutting the direct ‘Disneyland Express’ from the UK to Disneyland, near Paris. The route will cease on 6 June 2023. Eurostar said it was concentrating on the core cities it serves in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The EU’s new Entry Exit System (EES) for travellers from outside the EU is expected to be operational at the end of May 2023.

737. Broadband rollout: Broadband installers and their subcontractors are frustrated with the process of bringing workers into the UK. It can take companies nine months to hire skilled people. Home secretary Priti Patel has acknowledged that the process “inevitably involves more friction” but said that “taking back control of our immigration system is a key benefit of leaving the EU”. Including relocation, the total cost of hiring a worker from abroad is estimated to be £11,000 compared to £1,500 for a domestic worker over a five-year period.

736. Immigration: The number of EU citizens migrating to the UK for work has collapsed while the number of people from non-EU countries gaining work visas has surged, according to the FT. In the year to June a record 1.1 million visas were granted of which 331,233 were work-related, a rise of 72% since 2019. Out of workers in the category previously known as “skilled worker”, 46% or 102,981 were from India, up 80% on 2019. Only 12% of skilled worker came from the European Economic Area.

735. Brewing: A small brewery in Kent has seen a 95% fall in export sales since the UK left the EU. The Old Dairy Brewery in Tenterden says extra paperwork, customs checks and transport rules are to blame. A body which represents beer exporters says export costs are now so high, small breweries cannot even afford to send samples to trade fairs.

734. Ex pats: According to Bloomberg, UK citizens living in Europe are coming to terms with the annoyances and obstacles of life in a post-Brexit world. Costly residence permits, a weak pound and travel hassles are just some of the problems emerging as UK citizens living in the EU adjust to being foreigners in their adopted countries. Some have been forced to return to the UK while others are going so far as to renounce their citizenship.

733. Steel Tariffs: Some steel exports from Great Britain to Northern Ireland face a 25% tariff because of the Northern Ireland protocol. The EU has changed some of its rules in regard to steel imports for reasons related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which has resulted in sales of steel products to Northern Ireland being subjected to tariffs.

732. Human rights: A letter from Trade Secretary Ann Marie Trevelyan leaked to The Independent says human rights would be kept out of trade talks. She believes that “free trade agreements are not generally the most effective or targeted tool to advance human rights issues”. This is being contrasted with assurances from Liz Truss in October 2020, that the UK’s “values-driven” trade policy would be used to “spread our fundamental values”, such as human rights, around the world.

731. London Stock Exchange: The chair of the London Stock Exchange has warned that without a post-Brexit shake-up of City rules, London will lose its status as a global financial hub. In a submission to the Financial Conduct Authority, Michael Findlay said the City would drift towards “regional market” status if it did not cut red tape around listings. He said officials must strip back excessive stock market rules.

730. Calais: Thousands of frustrated holidaymakers have been stuck in six-hour queues at Calais trying to get to Dover because of ‘delays caused by British Border Control’, according to the Daily Mail. One fed-up passenger claimed: ‘The cause of all the delays was all down to UK Border Control. There were only four booths open for all the thousands of travellers trying to get through.’ A UK Government spokesperson said: “Border Force continue to work closely with operators, French counterparts and relevant government agencies to minimise disruption in advance of the busy bank holiday weekend.”

729. Eurostar: Citing financial factors and the post-Brexit border situation, the company confirmed services carrying passengers between London St Pancras and Europe via the Channel Tunnel would not stop at the two Kent stations, Ashford and Ebbsfleet, during 2023 and may not do so again until 2025. With the EU’s entry/exit system due to be in place by the end of May 2023 expected to add “further complexity” Eurostar said it would not be able to “make any commitment for another two to three years”.

728. Wine: Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey has been dealt a heavy blow by Brexit. They rely on the French and German wine industries to supply and service their equipment in the UK but due to Brexit red tape, some businesses on the continent will no longer deal with the company. Others — partly reflecting the higher costs of doing business with Britain — have put their prices up so much that new equipment to help the enterprise to grow is unaffordable.

727. Seed potatoes: A farm in Scotland has lost annual sales of 20,000 tonnes of seed potatoes which are no longer permitted in the EU following Brexit. Andrew Skea from Auchterhouse told The National: “We used to sell 40 high-value varieties, but we have lost our exports completely – half of our sales … We had a domestic market of 500 million people. That’s been cut to 50m. The UK market alone just isn’t enough to keep some varieties going. It took me 20 years to grow the business to have enough to sell to meet the demand.” See also 4 and 406 below.

726. Re-enactment societies: Historical battle re-enactment societies say customs red tape could prevent them taking part in events overseas. The UK’s leading Napoleonic re-enactment society has said post-Brexit customs rules fail to account for their antique firearms, leaving them at risk of having their weapons confiscated. Before Brexit, re-enactors could obtain a free European licence alongside their shotgun licence, which is used for old-fashioned long arms, allowing them to travel freely with their weapons. However, there is no provisions under post-Brexit customs systems.

725. Research: A professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, José R Penadés, has lost a €2.5mn EU research grant to study how disease-causing bacteria evade treatment by antibiotics. The grant was awarded in March but has now been cancelled because the UK was unable to negotiate an agreement to remain in the Horizon Europe funding programme. Professor Penadés, director of the UK’s MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection, says others have made the difficult decision to leave the country and take up work in Europe and he fears for the future of UK science.

724. Chemists: Before Brexit, the UK was a net importer of academics. In 2019, science and engineering trade union Prospect found two-thirds of its EU members were thinking of leaving the UK. Earlier this year Martin Smith, head of policy at the Wellcome Trust, warned of a “real prospect that bright young scientists will decide it will be best for their careers if they leave the UK” following Brexit. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK had a net loss of around 1300 scientists in 2020, a level of brain drain comparable to Brazil, with only India seeing a larger outflow.

723. Football: New UK immigration rules means that Viborg FF, West Ham’s opponents in a Europa Conference League play-off will be unable to travel to the UK with two African players. The Danish club said in a statement that they have “tried everything, and have been in close contact with DBU (Danish football association), UEFA, the two embassies and another foreign club which has been in a similar situation. But unfortunately it has proved to be impossible, as there is a processing time of several weeks and the match was only finally scheduled a week ago”.

722. Japanese Trade: In an official release, the Department of International Trade says in the four quarters to the end of Q1 2022, total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Japan decreased by 4.5% or £1.1bn compared to the four quarters to the end of Q1 2021. Total UK exports to Japan decreased 6.0% and total UK imports decreased by 3.0%. This is under the new free trade agreement signed by Liz Truss in November 2020. See also 710 below.

721. Hospitality: The UK hospitality industry has lost nearly 200,000 international workers since the end of 2019, according to an industry survey, as the effects of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic squeeze the jobs market. According to data from recruit agency Caterer.com the number of EU citizens working in hospitality businesses at 172,000, is down around 41% compared to a pre-pandemic total of nearly 293,000. The research, reported in the FT, is based on a survey of 250 senior hospitality hiring managers conducted in July.

720. Immigration: Neil O’Brien, Conservative MP for Harborough in Leicestershire has admitted that immigration has increased since Britain voted to leave the EU. This is despite pledges of “taking back control” and cutting migration to the tens of thousands, and comes amid widespread labour shortages in many sectors of the economy. O’Brien accused the government of “liberalising non-EU migration” since Brexit by ending caps on visas, lowering qualification requirements and removing minimum earning requirements for skilled migrants. NB. This also qualifies as an upside, depending on your perspective!

719. Labour shortages: A report by Oxford academics claims Brexit has exacerbated labour shortages with industries most reliant on freedom of movement hit hard. They found no evidence that employers had responded by raising wages. EU citizens in employment were down 6% compared with the same month in 2020, while non-EU migrants in employment had increased 9%. Madeleine Sumption, director of Oxford’s Migration Observatory cautioned that the response was not necessarily to increase the number of visas available to lower-skilled workers born abroad. She said, “Low-wage work visa schemes are notoriously difficult to police and often open workers up to exploitation and abuse”.

718. Farm workers: Indonesian workers on a Kent farm to fill post-brexit shortages are “at risk of debt bondage” according to The Guardian. To secure work in Britain Indonesian labourers said they faced thousands of pounds in exorbitant extra fees from brokers. One worker described how he staked his family home in Bali as surety on the debt and fears losing it. “Now I’m working hard only to pay back that money”, he said. “I cannot sleep sometimes. I have a family who need my support to eat and meanwhile, I think about the debt.”

717. Salmon: Scotland’s salmon industry is facing “acute” labour shortages due to Brexit despite average salaries of £36,000, business leaders have warned. Salmon Scotland say salmon businesses are running 20% short on staff and have warned candidates in the Tory leadership contest, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, that without change there was a threat to the industry’s business competitiveness. See also 698 below.

716. Airline pilots: As of 1 January 2023, the UK will cease to recognise EASA (European Aviations Safety Agency) issued licences and certificates for the operation of UK (G-registered) aircraft. Eligible pilots can acquire a UK licence whilst still holding their EASA licence but BALPA (British Airline Pilots Association) say they will need to begin the application process as soon as possible. Aircraft Maintenance Engineers previously licensed by UK authorities under EASA part 66 who need to work in Europe must reapply for their licence to an EU member state.

715. Endangered species: Breeding programmes designed to save endangered species are being threatened by Brexit. Zoos warn they are being prevented from transferring animals such as rhinos and giraffes by post-Brexit red tape. Before 31 December 2020, an average of about 1,400 transfers between the UK and other EU countries were made each year. But in 2021 there were just 56, and so far this year there have been 84, according to the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA).

714. Trade: ONS statistics for June show the UK’s trade deficit widened by £2.0bn to £27.9bn in Q2 (Apr to June) 2022 compared with the previous quarter; this is the largest quarterly deficit in current prices since records began in January 1997. Total exports of goods fell by £2.7bn (8.0%) in June 2022, driven by a £2bn (11.9%) decrease in exports to non-EU countries, while exports to EU countries decreased by £0.7bn (3.9%).

713. Banking: More British banks have joined Barclays (see 675 below) in advising UK residents in the European Economic Area that their accounts will be closed unless their permanent address is in the UK. Halifax and Lloyd’s, have now told UK citizens living in the EU that they will no longer be able to have and use their account in member states, primarily in Spain, France and Germany. Note: Halifax say this applies to a “very small number” of EU countries and does not include their customers resident in France.

712. Labour shortages: Councillor Colin Davie, Lincolnshire’s economy chief said the benefits of Brexit have not yet been realised as the county faces a major workforce shortage and the UK a “worse than a storm” financial future. He said: “I’ve got businesses on the coast who can’t recruit staff to work in their restaurants or bars and the owners and managers are doing the work themselves. They can’t do it forever and if they can’t get staff they’ll end up closing – that’s what we’re gonna see in the autumn if we’re not careful.”

711. Tax free shopping: The boss of clothing chain Superdry, Julian Dunkerton, has warned that travellers will prefer to go shopping in Europe because Britain no longer offers tax-free purchases. He said high-spending international tourists would stop coming to Britain and go to France instead. “The other aspect that people haven’t realised is that we as Brits can go to France and if we’re buying any high-ticket item, get a tax-free deal on that product”, he added.

710. Trade with Japan: An analysis by the University of Sussex’s Trade Policy Observatory of the first year of operation of the new UK-Japan Free Trade deal shows that during 2021, “In all cases but one, Japanese exports and imports of both goods and services with the UK performed worse than the equivalent flows with the EU or the Rest of the World”. Services exports fell 9.2% compared to 2020 while services imports fell 24%.

709. Food exports: A meringue manufacturing firm from Shropshire says it no longer exports to the EU due to issues created by Brexit. Flower and White employ 30 staff in Telford and produce a million items a day. They have exported to 12 countries in the EU but thousands of pounds worth of stock has ended up left at ports due to confusion over rules for exporting food items, owner Leanne Crowther said. For the business, Brexit had been “a disaster”, she added.

708. Dentistry: The British Dental Association has said NHS dentistry is at a “tipping point” after a decade of under-investment. Shawn Charlwood, chair of the General Dental Practice Committee at the BDA, told the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4 that “running up to Brexit and after the Brexit decision” we saw “thousands” of European dentists going home to the EU and they have not returned. This follows a survey of nearly 7,000 NHS practices by the BBC showing 90% are not accepting new adult patients for treatment under the NHS.

707. Farming: British breeders are unable to export their pedigree cattle, sheep and pigs to the EU because no private company in France is prepared to invest the millions of euros needed to build a border control post where vets can check the animals before they enter the single market. Now the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) is planning to ask farmers if they will help fund the facility themselves. Some breeders are relocating to the EU. See also 695 below.

706. Ex pats: British nationals living in Portugal are unable to access healthcare, change jobs, or travel in and out of the country because they have not received post-Brexit residency cards. The UK is urging Portugal to implement the withdrawal agreement fully and protect the rights of the 34,500 British residents. People have been detained at airports, forced to pay for healthcare and risked losing their jobs due to the delays in getting a biometric card which proves their legal status.

705. Data exchange: A report published by the Conservative European Forum warns that the potential loss of data flows if the government proceeds with a new UK-only rulebook on data security could cut Britain off from the free exchange of information within Europe. Amber Rudd, a former home secretary, cautioned against allowing UK agencies to be locked out of EU-wide security arrangements and said, “In the interests of security, both for the UK and the EU, we should seek to maintain the free flow of data”.

704. Trade: The FT report that Make UK (formerly the Engineering Employers Federation) are seeing signs that in capital-intensive sectors like engineering and electronics some UK subsidiaries of international companies are struggling to convince their parents to invest in the UK. Fhaheen Khan, senior economist at Make UK, said “Anecdotally we are seeing global conglomerates that have bases in many countries diverting R&D funding to other international bases”.

703. Northern Ireland: Brexit is being blamed for a perceived deterioration in community relations in Northern Ireland. Figures from the Executive Office show a “significant” decline in those thinking relations between Protestants and Catholics are improving. The Good Relations Indicator report for 2019, the most up-to-date figures published by the Stormont department, shows that the number of adults who think relations between the two communities have improved over the past five years has declined by almost 20 percentage points over the past three years.

702. Chemicals: In the EU, a group of eight chemicals linked to cancer will be restricted from use in synthetic football pitches and playgrounds from August. They will not be banned in the UK. In March, a cosmetics and household products ingredient called lilial was banned in the EU because it can affect reproduction and fertility. But a similar ban does not come into force here until the end of 2022. The EU is bringing forward new proposals that could see 5,000-7,000 chemicals banned by 2030, including flame retardants, PVC plastics, and chemicals used in plastic bottles and non-stick coatings on cookware. See also 660 below.

701. Asylum seekers: Despite the government’s stated aim of cutting the number of migrants crossing the English channel by sending asylum seeker to Rwanda, nearly 700 migrants crossed on Monday, a new daily record for this year. Some 696 people were detected making the dangerous journey from France in small boats. According to official figures, more than 17,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in dinghies so far in 2022. At the equivalent point in 2021, the cumulative total was just under 9,500. NB. This is not listed as a downside because of the increased numbers of immigrants, this is a downside because they have no legal means of seeking asylum and are forced into these dangerous crossings.

700. Exporters: Research from DHL Express has revealed that almost three quarters of SMEs who export or plan to export in the future (72%) agree that Brexit has increased the costs of doing business. Over a third (38%) who already export or plan to, remaining concerned about a lack of awareness among customers about the additional import costs payable. Ian Wilson, CEO at DHL Express UK, said: “this latest piece of research makes clear that businesses are still facing a number of challenges and are in need of support to help them navigate the changes.”

699. Insurance: The Irish subsidiary of UK insurance group Royal London, set up in 2018 to serve the Irish market, is “monitoring” for any divergence between EU and UK industry regulations as a result of Brexit that may impact its business model. The firm is watching for any change in how the two blocs manage the insurance industry as so-called regulatory divergence “could result in the loss of some element of efficiency” in its operating model, according to accounts for Royal London Insurance DAC for 2021 filed with the Companies Registration Office in Dublin.

698. Salmon: Scotland’s salmon industry has called for urgent action to tackle Brexit-related delays at Dover, with concerns over fresh fish being left to “rot in lorries”. Fresh salmon from Scotland usually arrives in France the following morning, but in recent weeks there have been delays of up to 48 hours due to queues on the UK side of the Channel. Delays in recent weeks has meant at least one day when no fresh salmon reached France at all, according to Salmon Scotland.

697. Mutual recognition: The UK government is to pay business bodies to broker deals in foreign countries to allow City workers to more easily work overseas post-Brexit. The new Recognition Arrangements Grants Programme will see payments of up to £75,000 given to professional bodies and regulators, for industries such as accounting and legal services, to pursue mutual recognition of professional qualifications deals. The UK lost its wide-ranging access to EU financial markets post-Brexit, with barriers also erected for City firms wanting to send workers to the continent.

696. Sandwiches: The FT are reporting that the British £8bn/year packaged sandwich industry is being ‘derailed’ by Brexit, Covid and inflation. In 2017, EU nationals accounted for more than one-third of the food industry workforce. The UK’s points-based immigration regime has now halted the free flow of low-paid labour, while the Covid pandemic prompted an estimated 1.3 million overseas workers to return home. Ingredient shortages caused by supply chain disruptions have added to the industry’s woes.

695. Farming: A Dorset farm has had to suspend more than £150,000 of orders and may be forced to abandon any future activity in Europe because of post-Brexit changes at sea ports. Wessex Lowlines has spent a decade breeding world-leading cattle, but say the failure to set up a Border Control Post (BCP) to provide crucial veterinary services and processing of livestock entering Europe means all orders for breeding herds in Europe have been suspended.

694. Universities: Applications from EU students who want to study in Irish universities have more than trebled since the 2016 Brexit referendum. Figures from the Irish Universities Central Applications Office show a huge jump applications from other EU countries. From 1,934 in 2017 the numbers have increased to 6,383 this year.

693. Touring Musicians: The organiser of the British rock and heavy metal music festival Bloodstock has criticised the increasing post Brexit costs and paperwork for British bands wanting to travel across the Channel and EU bands wanting to come and play in the UK. Adam Gregory said, “There was no real big blockades that we could say would stop a festival from being successful. Then Brexit came along, and literally every barrier in the world went up overnight”.

692. Business: The Institute of Director’s Economic Confidence Index, which measures business leaders’ view of UK economic prospects, shows in July that 69% of bosses were either very or quite pessimistic about UK economy. Only 15% were optimistic. UK businesses are slashing investment plans as soaring prices, Brexit trading difficulties and political uncertainty all leave bosses pessimistic about the economic outlook.

691. Bio-diversity: According to the Ends Report, Defra has amended its website to show that it would report on only seven biodiversity indicators. Among those that the department will not assess this year are: surface water status; threatened habitats; farmland, woodland and wetland species; seabirds; protected species distribution; marine pollution and invasive species. Surface water quality is known to be in a poor condition in England with no rivers meeting overall standards of good health in the last Environment Agency assessment.

690 Passports: The Telegraph reports that the British passport has fallen from first place to joint 13th on the Henley passport index – a global ranking of countries in terms of the travel freedom their passports enjoy. In 2010, a British passport was ranked as the most powerful in the world, we could visit more destinations without a prior visa than any other nationality. Countries lower down, face more hurdles, bureaucracy and suspicion with demands for extra paperwork and are often refused entry.

July 2022 ⇓
689. Trade: Thousands of British companies are cutting economic ties with China en masse and new alliances will be needed in post-Brexit Europe to offset souring trading links with Beijing, warns Tony Danker, the CBI director-general in the FT. Danker said companies were restructuring their supply chains in anticipation of hardening anti-China political sentiment. “We need new strategic alliances in the world,” he said, adding that companies needed to build “resilience … In Washington this is all they are talking about”.

688. Prices: A snapshot survey by Guardian Money examined prices of popular items at pan-European retailers including Ikea, Apple, JD Sports, and H&M, as well as Zara and Decathlon and found in some cases prices were up to 50% cent higher in the UK than in Spain. Decathlon largely blamed Brexit for the price differentials. It said: “The UK’s exit from the EU has made it more expensive to import stock.” The French sports goods retailer had to expand the size of their supply team in order to deal with the additional administration, costs and duties associated with Brexit.

687. Food standards: A report by the ResPublica think tank claims that UK farming is at risk if Britain pursues a ‘soft’ approach in trade deals with countries with ‘less qualms’ about quality. Director Phillip Blond said, “The clear and present danger here is that the high standards the UK sets for itself will be undermined once meat and other animal products start being shipped en masse from abroad.”

686. Regional funding: An analysis by The eastern Daily Press shows that Norfolk and Suffolk are together receiving about 20% less per year than when the UK was as an EU member, even without taking account of inflation. Between 2014 and 2020, the region received about £11.3mn each year in European structural funds to boost innovation, businesses, skills and employment along with projects to improve social inclusion. Under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund however, the counties are only receiving about £9mn annually from April 2022 until April 2025.

685. Housing: Glasgow has partly blamed Brexit for missing its affordable housing targets last year. The city fell 564 short of the intended number of completed homes as the construction industry faced “extremely challenging” circumstances. Only 879 homes (61% of the 1443 target) were finished. The UK’s acrimonious exit from the EU, coronavirus and the war in Ukraine were given as reasons for the failures, with construction costs soaring and materials in short supply.

684. Residency rights: The Western Morning News has outlined four ways in which the ending of freedom of movement has had negative consequences for mixed EU-U.K. families. These include cases where a persons residency rights now depend entirely on their spouses status, family members having to negotiate with each other considering compromises and trade-offs, when choosing where to live and work after Brexit. See also 679 below.

683. Financial services: TheCityUK, a trade body representing UK-based financial and related professional services, has warned that the UK’s services sectors are being hamstrung by political neglect and a lack of attention in trade policy. Nicola Watkinson, MD, International Trade and Investment at industry group, said it was “a little bizarre” that the UK services industry still had to fight for visibility and inclusion in trade policy despite making up some 80% cent of economic output.

682. Research: A Cambridge research centre for bird intelligence, the Comparative Cognition Lab, facing closure due to Brexit, has had to be saved by a campaign to raise £500,000 from public donations. Together with support from the university, the facility’s immediate future is secure. The lab had previously been funded by grants from the EU and was due to continue under Horizon Europe, a key EU research funding programme but the UK’s participation has been delayed due to the ongoing row over the Northern Ireland protocol.

681. Trade: A survey of 2,600 exporters by The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) found a quarter had suffered a fall in exports and another 46% reported no increase despite booming export markets. William Bain, the BCC’s head of trade policy, said that since last summer UK exports to the EU and the rest of the world have stalled while many other leading exporting countries have enjoyed a boom. “The combination of supply chain disruption, soaring prices, and the impact of Brexit red tape and compliance costs has had chilling effects on exports, especially for smaller firms already scarred by the pandemic”, he said.

680. Business: The Conservative mayor for the West Midlands, Andy Street, has said that Brexit is bad for business. Speaking on Radio 4’s PM programme, Street said that there had been “some consequences” on business in his region as a result of Brexit and added, “if you look at this region, our deterioration in the export performance is definitely partly to do with that [Brexit]”.

679. Families: Research by a group exploring the long-term impacts of Brexit on migration between the EU and UK reveals high levels of anxiety among “mixed status” families – where one partner is British and the other European. A British woman currently in France for example told researchers that her “husband and daughter cannot return to UK and live there with me”. It found that six years after the EU referendum, strong negative feelings remained over questions relating to entitlements, and the loss of freedom to move from one country to another in future.

678. Tourists: The Daily Mail is reporting that since Britain became a third country Spanish border authorities are requesting proof that tourists can spend at least €100 per-day and have a minimum of €900 available. Spanish officials can also ask tourists to prove they have an onward ticket and accommodation booked for their stay. If tourists are unable to prove they can support themselves financially, they could be denied entry. After Brexit, the UK is also able to impose similar obligations on EU tourists arriving here as a standard visitor.

677. Chemicals: According to the FT, the UK chemicals sector faces a post Brexit red tape hit which is twice the initial industry estimates. A government impact assessment seen by the paper, has put the central estimate of the cost of registering chemicals on a new UK database, often duplicating existing EU registrations, at £2bn. It comes as both leadership candidates pledge to cut EU red tape. The DEFRA assessment implied a £91,000 bill for each substance registered under UK Reach and that 22,400 ‘distinct substances’ would fall within the scope of the new regime.

676. EU legal proceedings: The EU have launched four new infringement procedures against Britain for non compliance with significant parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. These are in addition to the infringement procedures launched on 15 June 2022. They include failing to comply with customs requirements on the movement of goods from NI to GB, failing to notify the transposition of EU legislation laying down general EU rules on excise duties on alcohol and alcoholic beverages and failing to implement EU rules on VAT for e-commerce.

675. Barclays bank: Barclays have asked customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) to close their accounts because they “can no longer provide [banking services], because we have an address for you, or for someone associated with your account, in the EEA.” It is not known how many such accounts are affected.

674. Divorce bill: The Brexit divorce bill negotiated by Boris Johnson has increased by nearly £10bn compared to the official estimate when the UK left the EU. The Treasury says the increase is “primarily due to the most recent valuation of the UK’s obligation under Article 142 for EU pensions”. When Britain left the EU in January 2020 the Office for Budget Responsibility put the figure at £32.9bn, meaning the cost of the financial settlement has soared by nearly £10bn.

673. Dover: The Port of Dover has declared a “critical incident” due to five-hour queues leading to the ferry terminal. CEO Doug Bannister said the port had been “badly let down” by the French border controls which he said were “insufficiently resourced” in France and working slower than normal, causing traffic to queue for miles. Travellers, some with young children, say they have barely moved for hours as they approach the port.

672. NatWest: According to the German newspaper, Handelsblatt, in order to absorb the consequences of Brexit, NatWest will open a subsidiary in Germany, especially for its British business customers. NatWest Europe GmbH, based in Frankfurt, is to become fully operational by the end of the year. Customers from the continent will continue to be served by the Dutch NatWest subsidiary. The aim of the German subsidiary is also to serve European business customers who invest in the UK.

671. Public health research: A group representing Britain’s top universities has written to the EU Commission warning that science and research are “too important” to be used as part of the negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol. The Russell Group said that loss of UK association to Horizon Europe, a major EU research programme, could damage climate change and public health research.

670. Financial regulation: UK insurance companies have warned that a proposed post-Brexit overhaul of the rules governing the sector would increase capital requirements for some providers, according to the FT. Ministers hoped the overhaul of the EU’s Solvency II regime would free up tens of billions of pounds for UK infrastructure. However, in reply to a consultation the Association of British Insurers said that for life insurers, proposals by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority would not reduce the amount of capital life insurers would have to hold, and would actually force them to hold more, meaning less investment in productive assets. See also 668 below.

669. British touring musicians: Research by the campaign group Best for Britain shows that on average, the number of British musicians scheduled to tour Europe this summer has fallen by 45% compared to the pre-Brexit years 2017-19. Industry leaders have warned that the UK Government’s Brexit deal makes doing business much harder for touring musicians who are often asked to fill last-minute vacancies in a festival line up. They claim that the end of FoM has effectively disqualified emerging UK artists from these opportunities.

668. Financial regulations: Government plans to deregulate the City of London in a post-Brexit ‘Big Bang’ will face stiff opposition from the Bank of England, which is seeking to defend high standards and its regulatory autonomy, according to the FT. Sunak set out his approach in a “Brexit manifesto”, talking of a “Big Bang 2.0” that would stimulate growth and “will reap long-term rewards”. BoE governor Andrew Bailey is said to regard it as meddling by ministers and could increase risk. One senior government official involved in drawing up the new regime said, “Bailey isn’t too happy”.

667. US confidence in UK business: While remaining relatively positive, US investors operating in the UK are slightly less confident than they were a year ago according to a recent survey. US companies say, “continuing challenges surrounding the UK-EU economic collaboration are the main issue affecting foreign direct investment confidence levels”. The predominant reason for the dip is the “progressive impact of the UK-EU split” which respondents cited as one of the most unattractive aspects of doing business in the UK.

666. Trade: A report by the trade body Make UK claims Brexit-supporting regions in the UK are becoming increasingly dependent on the EU for their manufacturing exports. The research, based on quarterly manufacturing outlook data measuring performance in output, orders, employment and investment intentions, also found the EU remains the “overwhelmingly dominant” destination for UK manufacturing exports. Analysis by the business advisory firm BDO of 2021 data shows that 49% of British exports go to the 27-nation bloc.

665. Northern Ireland: In a further embarrassment for the UK government and supporters of the NI Protocol Bill, trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic continues to “soar”. According to the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), imports from Northern Ireland for January to May 2022 increased by €357mn to €1.9bn euro when compared with the same period of 2021. At the same time, exports to Northern Ireland from the Republic increased by €586mn euro to €1.974bn.

664. Medicines: The UK fell behind the EU last year in the number of so-called novel medicines approved for use. An audit conducted by Imperial College London found that only 35 so-called novel medicines were approved for use in the UK in 2021 compared with 40 in the EU and 52 in the US. Industry experts said the smaller size of the UK market, which accounts for just 2.4% of global healthcare spending, compared with 22% for the EU, makes it less economical for some international drug companies to complete paperwork for just the UK.

663. Regulators: A new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) looked at how three UK regulators (the HSE, FSA and CMA) are managing the transition away from the EU. The NAO say all the regulators identified loss of data and information-sharing arrangements with EU counterparts as having a negative impact on their ability to assess risks or carry out their work. They are seeking to mitigate the loss in a number of different ways, for example, using other international systems, publicly available data or setting up data-sharing arrangements on a case-by-case basis where possible.

662. The arts: Fergus Linehan, the outgoing director of the Edinburgh International festival has called for the UK’s visa and exports rules to be greatly simplified to allow musicians and artists to travel overseas far more smoothly. Lineham said, the UK’s post-Brexit visa rules had been a “disaster” for the arts and for artists by stifling collaboration and making it harder for British artists to tour abroad. He has urged the UK government to introduce visa-free travel for artists and solve the huge logistical problems affecting companies importing touring equipment into the UK.

600. Regulators: The National Audit Office has published a report indicating that UK regulatory bodies are finding it difficult to recruit staff and expand activities as necessary after Brexit. The Competition and Market Authority faces challenges in recruiting increasing numbers of staff with expertise in toxicology for example. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) expects it will be a further four years before it reaches the full capacity and there is a risk regulatory decisions could be delayed. The HSE has already extended approvals for biocidal active substances due to expire in 2021-22 to at least 2023.

599. UK economy: The UK economy is estimated to have lost £47bn because of Brexit red tape as businesses drown in cross-border tax complexities, claims City AM. Just under a third of survey respondents currently exporting to the EU are planning to exit at least one market, and 3 in 5 businesses say fears about tax compliance has caused them to reverse plans to sell goods in the EU. The research predicts that the investment loss due to cross-border tax complexity is expected to result in a further £16.1bn of value lost to the UK by 2026.

598. Red tape: Marks & Spencer CEO Archie Norman has said Brexit red tape is far worse for British exports to the EU than to Northern Ireland, with some documentation having to be completed in Latin and in a particular typeface. Norman said that exports from Britain to Northern Ireland were currently able to avoid the quagmire thanks to a temporary grace period but he warned that it requires 700 pages of documentation to send a “wagon” to the Republic of Ireland, which it takes eight hours to complete.

597. Ulster farmers: Because of the Irish Sea border created by the NI protocol, Ulster farmers are unable to bring animals to England, Scotland and Wales to exhibit and sell, since they cannot bring them back easily. Before returning they must first remain in GB for six months. Harry Parker, the chair of the British Limousin Cattle Society said there are 500 or so members in Northern Ireland, and that this problem has been causing them and other cattle breeders headaches for roughly the last 18 months or so. He described the situation as “appalling”.

596. Publishing: A Scottish publisher has blamed Brexit after his business was hit with spiralling costs and dwindling sales. Glasgow-based Vagabond Voices is chiefly involved in translating European novels into English. Owner Allan Cameron, who specialises in Italian translations, told The Sunday National that Brexit had caused delivery times to double in some cases while printing costs have increased – both issues he pins on the UK’s exit of the European Union. As well as a “substantial” increase in costs, he’s also seeing his EU sales plummet – a key market for the company.

595. Imported food risk: Farming and veterinary groups have warned that delays to applying checks on EU food imports are “an accident waiting to happen” according to the FT. Industry insiders claim the Food Standards Agency has warned pig farmers about illegal shipments of pork from Romania which is battling an outbreak of African Swine Fever in its animals. The British Veterinary Association has described the delay as “deeply misguided” and urged ministers to “abandon” their plans or risk causing “significant damage” to the country’s food and farming industries.

594. Hauliers: The government has announced that specialist hauliers serving Britain’s musical touring sector will be now able to use ‘dual registration’, a system allowing hauliers to drive the same vehicle in Great Britain and the EU. Hauliers will however need to have an “established base” in the EU and will be able to transfer vehicle operator licences without the need to change vehicles, have their journeys limited or pay VED in Great Britain.  The announcement was described as a “major boost.”

593. Costs of trade: According to CityAM, Brexit means there is £173m a week less to spend on the NHS, according to calculations based on recent ONS and UK Government data. David Jinks, head of consumer research at international transport firm ParcelHero, which carried out the research, said, “Even if we subtract the true £11bn cost of EU membership for 2018, from the £20bn drop in EU export earnings, UK plc is still £9bn poorer than it was in 2018.” He added that, “In January 2021 alone , the value of goods exported to the European Union fell from £14.3bn in the previous month to £7.8bn.”



592. Ex pats disillusionment. A survey, of 1,328 British nationals living across the continent, showed that Brexit, and the UK’s handling of the Covid pandemic, strongly affected 80% of respondents’ feelings towards Britain, with responses including “deep shame”, “disappointment”, “embarrassed to be British”, “shambolic”, and “like watching a house on fire”. Just over 30% still felt emotionally attached to the UK, compared with 75% who said they felt a very or extreme emotional attachment to the EU, and 59% who felt the same in relation to their country of residence.

591. Chicken: Brexit pressures are largely to blame for the soaring price of chicken, the British Poultry Council (BPC) has said – rejecting Boris Johnson’s claim it is down to global energy prices. The BPC blamed post-Brexit non-tariff barriers and skill shortages for the sharp rise in production costs. Citing “ongoing Brexit pressures”, the industry trade body said: “Combined with trade barriers, shipping delays for machinery plus a skills shortage (vets and lorry drivers), this all adds a cost that has to be recovered through the marketplace.”



590. Art works: A British dealer, Steve Shovlar, says, his firm is now “in ruins” thanks to Brexit. Shovlar mainly deals in old master paintings priced between £100 and £1,500 — not enormous sums, but enough for his small business to be worth £1m. However, since the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, his income has dropped by 60% with EU trade involving multiple invoices and customs declarations now “virtually impossible”. Shipping delays of around four to six weeks are not uncommon.

589. Driving licences: From 1 May, tens of thousands of UK citizens living in the EU will be unable to use their UK driving licence on roads in Spain after the UK and Spanish governments failed to reach an agreement about DVLA-issued licences by the 30 April deadline. Tourists are exempt from the new policy which will only impact Britons resident in Spain. Every other European nation has come to a post-Brexit agreement about UK drivers.

588. Holiday bar staff: Holidaymakers in some European resorts are expected to face an unexpected shortage this summer. Brexit employment rules mean many bars and restaurants will be short of staff because of restrictions on workers from the UK. For decades, thousands of British youngsters have jetted overseas for a summer working in the bars of popular holiday resorts in Spain and Greece, but this has now been blocked because of the UK’s exit from the European Union.

April 2022 ⇓
587. International trade: Research by the Petersen Institute for International Economics shows that Brexit has reduced UK trade openness, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, and immigration growth. New border frictions and higher transport costs pose new barriers to trade, and FDI inflows are unlikely to return to levels reached in the 1990s and 2000s.

586. Inflation: A former Bank of England policy maker, Adam Posen, has attributed most of Britain’s inflation problem to Brexit. The economist who heads the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that 80% of the reason why the International Monetary Fund expects Britain’s inflation to remain elevated for longer than other G7 peers is the impact of leaving the EU.

585. Inflation: Brexit has caused a 6% increase in Britain’s food prices, according to new evidence from the London School of Economics. Nikhil Datta, a researcher, found that greater trade barriers on imports from the EU has had a “clear and robust” impact on food prices, as families struggle to cope with the cost of living crisis. Grocery bills have risen most sharply for food products more reliant on imports from the EU, the study by the LSE Centre for Economic Performance revealed.

584. Research: British universities are facing a brain drain as the row over the Northern Ireland protocol threatens £250m in research funding from the EU, according to The Guardian. The European Research Council (ERC) has written to 98 scientists and academics who were recently approved for €172m (£145m) in grants telling them that if the UK’s associate membership of the €80bn Horizon Europe programme is not ratified they will not be eligible to draw down the money.

583. Passport rules: A family has lost a £3,000 holiday after the mother was told her passport, which expired in February 2023 was not valid for travel to Portugal and some other European countries. Although the passport had more than the required three months before the expiry date, Nina Gurd was told the expiry date was irrelevant, she explained to the BBC. Bournemouth Airport staff said it needed to be within ten years of the issue date and Gurd’s passport was originally issued on 29 May 2012, but had been renewed early and another nine months added, giving it a new expiry date of 28 February 2023.

582. Trade: Boris Johnson has indicated that import controls on EU goods due to take effect in July will be delayed for a fourth time after experts warned of a “collapse” in trade if the checks are implemented. The PM appeared to suggest the checks can be put off indefinitely until technological solutions are found. It cements an inbuilt advantage for EU exporters. The EU was able to implement checks on UK exports immediately Brexit came into effect in January 2021 while ‘grace periods’ for imports from the continent, have been repeatedly extended.

581. EU Trade Agreement: In March, the EU published a review of the working of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement after its first year of operation in 2021. It noted a “marked decline” in trade in goods. EU imports from the UK falling 24.8% compared to 2019 and EU exports to the UK falling by 11.4%. It warned of future ‘challenges’ for EU exporters when UK customs and SPS requirements on imports are implemented later this year due to the “complexity of the IT system put in place by the United Kingdom.”

580. Trade: The Institute of Directors (IOD) has published survey data showing that 42% of businesses that trade internationally are now exporting less to the EU compared to the last five years, with 28% importing less from the EU. Emma Rowland, Policy Advisor at the Institute of Directors, said, “Over the past year, UK businesses have lost EU clients and experienced a loss in revenue. EU firms have pulled out of the UK market due to increased trade frictions”. One of the primary challenges businesses face is the administrative and cost-related burden of new customs arrangements.

579. Import costs: A wine merchant has claimed importers are being forced to pay up to £150 per consignment for customs paper work associated with excise goods in transit from the EU to a bonded warehouse in the UK. Daniel Lambert, of Daniel Lambert (Wines) in Bridgend says hauliers are increasingly using independent brokers for the duplicated documents required for bonded stock and they are charging up to £150. On a pallet of wine this adds 48p per bottle to the retail price.

578. Gibraltar: According to City AM, Spanish authorities are refusing entry to British nationals trying to enter the country from Gibraltar. Numerous British citizens were said to be unable to enter Spain this week as authorities at the border demanded to see hotel reservations and evidence of onward travel. Those who were unable to do so were refused entry into Spain. It comes as Spain steps up controls on travellers from non-EU countries trying to enter the bloc via or from Gibraltar.

577. Northern Ireland: The Northern Ireland tourism industry has warned £160m of visitor spend and half a million tourists could be impacted by plans for a US-style visa waiver document for journeys across the border. Under new post-Brexit legislation being considered, non-Irish EU citizens living in or visiting the Republic would require an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to cross the border into Northern Ireland. Dr Joanne Stuart from the NI Tourism Alliance said there had been “no consultation at all with the industry” on the plans and said the single-entry system “would just be unworkable and completely impractical”.

576. Exporters: The FT report the influx of British-based companies to Holland has swelled as they struggle with the disruption of a customs border across the North Sea. More than 90 investors have built or rented distribution space since 2017, half of them in 2021, according to government agency Invest in Holland. Martin Bysh, CEO of Huboo, a logistics provider, said it had to act after clients deserted as Brexit negotiations went to the wire in December 2020. “We lost about 10% of our revenue, which was clients leaving the UK for Europe,” he said. “It was a chaotic landscape.”

575. Language schools: A report by the Tourism Alliance says language schools for foreign students are being “devastated” by a combination of post-Brexit red tape and the impact of the pandemic, threatening the future of a £3.2bn industry. The TA said even though covid travel restrictions had been lifted, ministers had imposed unnecessary barriers on children from France, Germany and other EU nations, prompting a collapse in school group bookings and an estimated 80% drop in revenue across the industry, threatening 40,000 jobs.

574. Services exports: Figures from the ONS show financial services exports to the EU for Q1-Q3 2021 fell by 38% compared to the same period in 2018 while the same exports to the rest of the world were flat. Professional services exports to the EU fell 12% when sales of similar services to the rest of the world rose by 40%.

573. HGV drivers: Road hauliers warn they cannot persuade enough EU drivers to come to the UK, and businesses face losing customers if they cannot provide reliable delivery services. The drivers are put off by the prospect of waiting to pass through Dover or Folkestone. The Cold Chain Federation, said the UK had developed a “post-Brexit perception problem” typified by the recent traffic jams while Nick Allen, CEO of the British Meat Processors Association, said: “Hauliers are reporting that they are struggling to get drivers willing to go to the UK if they are going to get delays getting home again and with the international shortage of drivers, they are able to be selective about what jobs they take.”

572. Medicines Regulator: Sources in the health care sector have told PoliticsHome that a senior official at the Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said regulatory changes as a result of Brexit could cost MHRA between £20-30m, leaving the regulator with a funding ‘black hole”. Before Brexit, the MHRA had earned a significant amount from the European Medicines Agency for work assessing new drugs but as a result of the changes they would have to adapt to a “new setup” post-Brexit.

571. Exports: A survey of more than 2,700 exporters by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) found the number of firms reporting an increase in overseas sales unchanged at 29% during the first quarter of this year, while those reporting a decrease rose by one percentage point to 25%. William Bain, head of trade policy at the BCC, said this performance compares poorly to that of Germany, where exports inside and outside the European single market are ahead by double-digit margins.

570. Regional funding: According to The Independent, almost £2bn has been slashed from promised development spending in poorer areas of the UK. The government had pledged to match lost EU funding which would have required at least £4.5bn over the next three years but the budget reveals just £2.6bn has been allocated and reallocates the fund to improving “functional numeracy skills”, to boost job prospects. The move has provoked anger in many ‘Red Wall’ areas of England and in Scotland and Wales – which were big recipients of EU structural funds before Brexit.

569. Beetroot: 500 tonnes of beetroot is being left to rot due to a collapse in demand, caused by Brexit, a farmer tells the BBC. Will Woodhall grows beetroot and spring onions alongside cereals at his farm in Penkridge, Staffordshire and expects to lose up to £90,000 after border rules introduced in January has seen firms in the EU look elsewhere, particularly for perishable goods. Woodhall said he expected to turn the crop into compost instead. The government has said traders need to take advantage of new trade deals it is negotiating across the world.

568. Dover chaos: A meat haulier based in Lockerbie, Eardley International, who takes fresh meat from the UK into Europe, told the BBC they were experiencing delays of 20 to 25 hours to cross the Channel costing the business up to £800 per lorry. Director Graham Eardley explained, “Our products have a very short shelf life, if we load lamb in the UK on a Monday, we’d expect to deliver that product to Germany on a Tuesday. Now we are seeing delays of 20 to 25 hours to cross the Channel, and the quality and the sale value of that product falls by every hour it is delayed.”

567. Exporters: The number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU fell 33% to 18,357 in 2021, from 27,321 in 2020, according to new data from HMRC published on 8 April, say City AM. Michelle Dale, a senior manager at accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, pointed out the fall is due to the extra red tape UK businesses must now comply with when exporting to the EU.

566. EU funding: The Financial Times has learned that the Shared Prosperity Fund due to be announced Wednesday, which will replace EU structural funding, will fall short of pre-Brexit promises that nations and regions would not be worse off. Johnson’s 2019 election manifesto promised that post-Brexit replacement funding would “at a minimum match the size” of EU funds in “each nation” of the UK. Documents show that England is set to receive almost 50% less than originally pledged, getting £1.56bn by 2024-25 instead of £3bn. The Welsh Government have already said that they are due to lose £1bn by 2024-25.

565. Farming: In a devastating new report, MPs on the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee concluded labour shortages, caused by Brexit and accentuated by the pandemic, have badly affected businesses across the food and farming sector. They say that if not resolved swiftly, the shortages threaten to shrink the sector permanently with a chain reaction of wage rises and price increases reducing competitiveness, leading to food production being exported abroad and increased imports.

564. Farming: According to Farmer’s Weekly, the decision by the EU at the end of last week to provide a €500m (£424m) emergency fund to directly subsidise farmers and the fertiliser industry is set to undercut UK food production. While many farmers agree that a move away from subsidies is the right idea in principle, unless the UK government follows the EU’s lead, it is now more likely than ever that production will be constrained here, unable to compete with food imported from the EU.

March 2022 ⇓
563. The Falklands: The Falklands government is complaining that Brexit has destroyed its overseas fish and meat exports. A spokesman is quoted saying, “While we continue to export fishery products to the EU, mainly squid, these exports are now less profitable”. The EU levies 6 to 18% tariffs on fishery products. It looks even more difficult for meat exports where the EU tariff is an average of 42% “The very high tariffs on our meat exports have resulted in the loss of the market as it is simply no longer profitable to export to the EU given the volumes we export”.

562. Trade: In the latest OBR Fiscal Outlook for March 2022, by the fourth quarter of 2021 total advanced economy trade volumes had rebounded to 3% above their pre-pandemic levels while UK exports remain around 12% below. The OBR say (page 63) that the UK therefore appears to have become a less trade intensive economy, with trade as a share of GDP falling 12% since 2019, two and a half times more than in any other G7 country. While Brexit is not mentioned specifically, it is difficult to see any other explanation for the uniquely precipitous fall in British trade.

561. Cycling: An article in The New European outlines the difficulties professional cyclists now encounter in gaining experience on the European tour after the end of freedom of movement. They are now limited to spending just 90 days in any 180 period on the continent. Last year, household names of the cycling world called for a robust solution to be in place by 2022. Unless an agreement is reached, they warned, “many riders [will] lose the opportunity to gain such critical experience”. There is said to be little confidence within the sport that Nadine Dorries, the new culture secretary, will successfully deliver a solution.

560. Bank transfers: Crédit Agricole, a French bank, has introduced a €5 charge for withdrawals made with UK-issued credit and debit cards and in addition, the bank recently started to imposed a new €18 flat fee on any bank transfers coming from Britain. It is expected that other European banks will introduce similar fees, according to various European media, including the magazine The Connexion.

559. Northern Ireland tourism: Non-Irish EU citizens crossing the land Border in Ireland will be required to apply online for pre-travel clearance – known as Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) – before entering the Northern Ireland. This comes as part the Nationalities and Borders Bill. A human rights group, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) condemned the move, which it said was “unworkable and risks a hard border for many non-British and non-Irish citizens in Border communities who have been able to freely cross the Border to date”.

558. Private equity: CVC Capital Partners, Europe’s largest private equity group, is planning to shun London and take its multi-billion-euro initial public offering to Amsterdam’s Euronext exchange, telling potential investors that it is aiming to set a €25bn target for its next private equity fund. The choice of Amsterdam over London, by a company that has its roots in the UK would be a blow to the London Stock Exchange. Britain has struggled to attract large and successful listings in the wake of its departure from the EU, which ended regulatory equivalence for financial services.

557. P&O Ferries: Contrary to reports, Brexit does not appear to have directly contributed to the fire and rehire policy at P&O Ferries. UK employment laws have not materially changed since leaving the EU. However, Sky News are reporting that Brexit has reduced UK-EU trade and traffic volumes are down, forcing P&O to re-examine its costs. The loss of the UK Land bridge to Irish traffic and the 32 new direct ferry services (see 318 below) between Ireland and the EU, operated by P&O’s competitors must also have had an effect on the company’s profitability.

556. Dover delays: Two hour delays at Dover are now said to to be the ‘new normal’ with lorry drivers reportedly furious, according to the Daily Express which campaigned for Brexit. Rod McKenzie, of the The Road Haulage Association, said: “when we left the European Union, we said goodbye to free-flowing trade between the relevant countries. It is inevitably the case, therefore, that there will be border checks and border delays.” Roads at Dover have suffered from significant clogging since January with Highways England reporting queues of up to six miles (10 km).

555. Trade deals: MPs on the public accounts committee have told the government that free trade agreements negotiated since Brexit may not provide any “actual economic benefits.” Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who deputy chairs the committee, said the department for international trade was “really struggling to point to tangible wins for British business, consumers or our own agriculture sector” from its programme of negotiations.

554. Microchips: The US Giant Intel have announced the first phase of plans to invest as much as 80 billion euros in the EU over the next decade along the entire semiconductor value chain – from research and development (R&D) to manufacturing. The plans cover an initial 17 billion euros for a semiconductor mega-site in Germany, a new R&D and design hub in France, and investment in R&D, manufacturing and foundry services in Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. The UK was not mentioned. It is not known if Brexit played a part.

553. Trade: Latest ONS figures for January 2022 show total goods imports increased by £4.7bn (11%), because of a £4.7bn rise in imports from EU countries while non-EU imports remained flat. Total exports of goods, decreased by £2.5bn (8.7%) driven by a £3.0bn decrease in exports to EU countries while exports to non-EU countries increased by £0.6bn. The total UK trade deficit in goods and services widened by £8.6bn to £21.3bn in the three months to January 2022.

552. Fraud: The director of legal services at the Crown Prosecution Service has said Brexit has made tackling fraud “more difficult.” Mr Gregor McGill told a parliamentary justice committee that leaving the EU had created problems for police pursuing fraudsters overseas. The committee heard that about 25% of fraud cases involved only defendants from the UK, with the number of cases involving “foreign” defendants rising “considerably more”.

551. Fashion exports: Growing numbers of UK fashion brands and retailers have started to cut ties with EU wholesale stockists as bureaucracy, complex customs procedures, VAT and tariffs, coupled with wider cost pressures make trading with the EU unviable. In February, Joules issued a profit warning, citing increased freight costs and Brexit-related import duties that came into effect on 1 January 2021. To tackle these issues, the retailer is “significantly” reducing its stockist base of more than 1,700 accounts worldwide – by terminating arrangements with some small and medium-sized stockists and EU sales agents from autumn 2022.

550. Crash testing: UK women are to lose out over new EU crash-test rules designed to improve the safety of cars to take account of gender differences. Women are 50% more likely to be seriously injured than men if involved in a crash. A rule requiring new models to include frontal impact protection “which does not disadvantage women and older people,” will be enforced a from 6 July in the EU and Northern Ireland but there are no plans at present for GB to adopt it even though the Department for Transport (DfT) and British experts were involved in drawing it up as part of a package of 15 safety measures.

549. Exports: SMEs (Small and medium sized enterprises) employ 16.3 million people in the UK; the ones that export are 21% more productive than other UK businesses, yet still export less than their European counterparts, by as much as half compared to Germany and Denmark, or even a third of Slovenia’s efforts. Brexit and the pandemic have compounded the problem according to City AM. The last two years have been one of the most challenging periods on record with the value and quantity of UK SME goods exports falling, despite a brief rebound which followed an initial massive £5.6bn fall after the UK’s departure from the single market.

548. Japanese companies: A survey by Rudlin Consulting shows Brexit continues to be a top concern of Japanese companies in the UK, but less concerning than in 2020. Nearly 50% of Japanese firms in the UK see Brexit as having had a negative impact, rising to two thirds if looking at manufacturers alone. Nearly half of Japanese manufacturers in the UK were experiencing issues with exporting to the EU from the UK and around 35% were experiencing problems with importing from the EU to the UK.

547. Trade: A report by the UK Trade and Business Commission says British businesses are suffering because of new barriers to trade with the EU in all parts of the UK and that new trade deals have not made up for the costs imposed by these new barriers and may even exacerbate problems. Small firms and freelance workers are encountering particularly severe problems while NI businesses face specific difficulties. They conclude the government doesn’t appear yet to fully understand the scale, range and complexity of the issues involved.

546. Diverging standards: In February 2021, Brussels announced a ban on ten pesticides on imported fruit and vegetables and the UK was expected to follow suit. But now DEFRA says no decision has yet been made on whether Britain will follow the EU or continue to permit the chemicals on food. The pesticides have been banned by domestic farmers in both the UK or EU for some years, but were still allowed for imports from outside the bloc subject to “maximum residue levels” checked by border staff.

545. Humanitarian aid: Charity workers who are trying to send aid to people in Ukraine say their donations are spending days stuck at the Port of Dover due to complex post-Brexit checks. A Polish centre in Lewisham south London, said it had up to 5 tonnes of donations delayed due to confusion over paperwork. Three lorries were stuck at Dover for two days last week, with drivers initially sent away by border officials asking for additional paperwork despite being told the goods were for humanitarian purposes, not commercial use.

544. Australia free trade deal: The House of Commons library has published details of the FTA signed with Australia last December. The government confirms it will increase GDP by just 0.08% in the long term, compared with the 4% decrease caused by Brexit. It also concedes the agreement may have an adverse effect on three sectors: agriculture, forestry and fishing; semi-processed foods; and manufacture of other transport equipment. The impact assessment notes all these estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty.

543. Red tape: Sir Desmond Swayne, MP for New Forest West and supporter of the Leave Means Leave group, speaking in the Commons during a discussion about international trade, has described the fact that UK exporters now have to fill in forms to ship goods to the EU as “monstrous”. Mike Freer, a junior minister at the Department for International Trade said the government planned to improve border systems by 2025. This will not however, remove customs and veterinary checks on goods, which are required by EU law.

542. Farming: New data from the Farming Opinion Tracker shows that 68% of people who responded said they are “not at all confident” that the government’s new policies will lead to a successful future for farming in the country. The National Farming Union (NFU) said farmers have been left in an “untenable” position, with “very little detail” available about how the schemes will impact them and their businesses. NFU president Minette Batters called the government’s post-Brexit farming policies “completely contradictory” earlier this week.

541. Red tape: According to the FT, Britain’s leading business organisations report that members are tired and frustrated by the lived experience of Brexit. Mike Cherry, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) says: “Small firms were promised that one upside of leaving the EU would be reduced red tape. They live in hope of delivery.” Other business groups like the British Chambers of Commerce, Make UK, the Construction Leadership Council and the Chemical Industries Association are also cited complaining that any benefits of Brexit are yet to be felt.

540. Delays at UK ports: So called ‘dwell-times’ at UK ports have doubled since last spring as Brexit red tape slows customs processes and global supply chains seize up. Shippers spent an average of more than seven days discharging at British ports last month. Data from the supply chain visibility platform FourKites shows UK port of discharge dwell times have risen strongly from a low of 3.6 day last April, while remaining steady across the rest of Europe. The figures also found a sharp decrease in the percentage of Europe-bound shipments passing through the UK.

February 2022 ⇓
539. Costs of Brexit: The FT report that ClearBorder, a training consultancy, has surveyed 150 mostly small companies and found that only a third of respondents were “very or somewhat confident” in the government’s ability to improve import and export procedures. A majority of companies are now holding more inventory, which consumes more working capital, and 38% said they had established a subsidiary in the EU to make the process smoother.

538. Customs duties: Figures from accountancy firm UHY Hacker show customs duties paid by UK businesses jumped 64% to a record £4.5bn in the year to 31 January 2022. The figures show that the last five months to 31 January 2022 are the five highest individual months on record for customs duties paid, with over £2.1bn paid in that period alone. Post-Brexit ‘Rules of Origin’ requirements mean anything sold in the UK by EU businesses must wholly or largely originate in the EU to be exempt from customs duties when it enters the UK.

537. Vets: The food and drink industry is demanding “urgent action” from the government to address a severe shortage of vets to process UK Export Health Certificates after Brexit. According to the FT, Industry groups have warned that a sharp decline in EU vets registering to work in the UK since Brexit, coupled with an immense increase in paperwork for exporters, was creating an “unsustainable” staffing squeeze.

536. Sugar: NFU Sugar has criticised the government’s decision to extend for another three years its 260,000 tonne tariff-free import quota for raw cane sugar produced in ways that would be illegal in the UK. Michael Sly, chair of NFU Sugar, warns the extension, coupled with the complete liberalisation of sugar in the UK-Australia trade deal, could lead to the permanent decline of the UK sugar beet industry. Sugar imports from Brazil alone have increased 217% year-on-year – a clear example of a country taking advantage of this quota to increase its sales to the UK.

535. Exports to Ireland: According to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), UK exports to Ireland fell by 13% in 2021 while those from Northern Ireland have surged by 65%. And while exports from Ireland to Great Britain grew by 17%, imports fell by 13%, from €17.7bn to €15.4bn. This is being attributed to the NI protocol which allows goods to move across the Irish border without the customs checks, which are now required out on shipments from Great Britain at Northern Irish ports instead.

534. Exports: Seven in ten UK firms say the government’s Brexit trade deal with the EU has been bad for business and held back growth, with a majority reporting it has pushed up costs and increased paperwork. A majority of the 1,000 companies polled by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) also said the deal had put Britain at a competitive disadvantage. Just one in eight firms think the hard Brexit deal secured by Boris Johnson has had a positive impact on them, the BCC found.

533. Imports: Freight specialists are warning importers that they need to get ready for the changeover from the old CHIEF import/export IT system to the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS). There are doubts about HMRC’s capacity to migrate 5,000 importers to CDS within the deadline, now just six months away. They suggest the complexity of CDS will put some strain on supply chains as importers get accustomed to the need for more information – CHIEF calls for 54 data elements, in contrast to the 80 needed by CDS.

532. Beef: Farmers have been warned that Canada is pushing for hormone-treated beef to be made available across the UK once Britain joins the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). According to the National Farmers Union, the deal would “severely undermine British farmers” and lower the quality of meat sold across the UK.

531. Musicians: British bands wishing to tour Europe now need to list every instrument and piece of equipment individually and have them cleared by customs with no possibility to add further items without additional extra customs clearance. John Read, a musician with the British band ‘Project Blackbird’ says that the band’s European tour last summer was a bureaucratic nightmare. Moreover, because of restriction on cabotage British trucks cannot be loaded or unloaded in more than two locations within the EU.

530. Falling exports: Figures released by the ONS this week showed UK exports to the EU fell by £20bn in 2021, a 12% fall compared with 2018. Clothing (60%), vegetables (40%) and cars (25%) saw the biggest falls. Over the same period, exports to the rest of the world excluding the EU dropped by a much smaller £10bn, or about 6%. UK goods imported from the EU were down almost 17% (£45bn), compared with 2018. In comparison, imports from the rest of the world increased by almost 13% (28bn).

529. Energy security: The French energy regulator CRE has rejected an investment request for a 1,400MW undersea electrical interconnector cable citing doubts related to Brexit uncertainties. The project was granted the European Project of Common Interest (PCI) status in 2017 under the EU’s TEN-E Regulations governing PCI projects. However, since the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020, the TEN-E Regulation no longer applies in the UK. Therefore, both the energy regulators considered that it was no longer possible to take coordinated decisions on the request.

528. Channel ports. One of the UK’s leading logistics trade bodies has said that Channel ports such as Dover could “grind to a halt” for both traders and travellers this summer as the result of post-Brexit border controls. The warnings follow the publication on Wednesday of a highly critical House of Commons report (see 525 below) that accused the government of “over-promising” and failing to hit its own deadlines. Logistics UK, the trade body, said EU biometric border controls due to be introduced this year would create long delays unless EU and UK authorities worked together to resolve urgent issues with the new system.

527. The UK economy. David Smith, the economics editor of The Sunday Times, commenting on the Bank of England’s forecast of 1.25% growth in 2023, followed by just 1% growth in 2024, significantly lower than the eurozone, says we are living with, “the adverse fiscal consequences of leaving the EU [which has] left us with a budget hole that has had to be filled with higher taxes. We now have a high-tax economy strangled by red tape and hampered by trade restrictions.”

526. HGV drivers. In an article titled: HGV Hell, The Daily Express reports that lorry drivers have been told to “get used to queues of three or four hours at Dover as new Brexit checks are implemented.” The report said that the new checks, which came into force at the start of the year, are causing disruption in Dover, as well as in Calais with long queues of lorries regularly seen lining up along the A20 in Kent. The lorries are forced to line up, it said, due to the Dover Traffic Assessment Project (TAP) being implemented, which is a protocol designed to stop the town from being clogged with traffic.

525. Brexit costs. A new report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), has said it “was clear” that leaving the EU was having an impact on UK trade volumes and warned things could worsen this year as new import controls come in. PAC chair Meg Hillier said, “the only detectable impact so far is increased costs, paperwork and border delays.” The PAC also said it was concerned about what will happen when passenger traffic across the UK border returns to normal levels as the pandemic subsides.

524. Meat costs. The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) told POLITICO that their members are already paying out an additional £60 million a year to fill out the documents known as Export Health Certificates (EHC) needed to ship all animal products to the EU. Nick Allen, CEO of the BMPA said, “That’s before you look at the extra staff that we need to do it, it’s a massive extra cost to the industry.” Businesses have also taken on new IT systems to fill the paperwork, port charges and customs agents’ fees. The BMPA is warning that this will mean rising costs for imports from the bloc when similar checks will be required on imports starting in July.

523. Translations. With many languages spoken in the EU, formal, public documents such as birth, death and marriage certificates may need translation to be used in another member state or region. Before Brexit there was a cheap, simple EU procedure for this covered by Regulation (EU) 2016/1191. As of 1 January this was no longer available. UK citizens will need to obtain expensive bespoke translations done privately, without knowing if this will satisfy the requirements of the receiving country.

522. Air passengers compensation: The department of transport is consulting on a plan to overhaul passengers rights after delayed flights within the UK which could lead to “small amounts of compensation that often won’t be worth claiming”. Currently, someone on an internal flight from Edinburgh to London is entitled to £220 once their flight has been delayed three hours, unless there are extraordinary circumstances such as bad weather. New rules could see compensation reduced to as little as 25% of the ticket price.

521. Food prices: Retail experts say the surge in food prices will not be resolved quickly, with the full impact of Brexit yet to be seen. Figures last week show the price of food items rose by 2.7% in January, the highest rate in nine years. Retailers say while some are short term others are not. Ewan MacDonald-Russell, head of policy at the Scottish Retail Consortium, said one issue was labour shortages in areas such as HGV drivers, distribution and farming. A surge in global commodity prices is being reflected in shopping baskets – sugar prices were up by 33% year-on-year in December, cereals increased by 20%, while meat and dairy rose by 17%.

520. Exports: The latest purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing is upbeat but remains below that of the eurozone. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the index, says: “UK goods export growth has lagged that of the eurozone to a striking degree over the past year, with the last five months even seeing the UK battling with falling/stalled exports, underperforming all European peers.”

519. Dover: long queues of lorries on approach roads to Dover are being blamed on French customs demanding an ink (wet) signature on documents from an official veterinarian for imports of food and animal feed from the UK. While electronic certification would have been possible using an EU computer system, the UK turned down an offer from Brussels to use the platform and built its own system instead. William Bain, the head of trade policy at the BCC, said, “Like many of the problems this looks to be down to a differing interpretation of how the trade arrangements work after leaving the EU”.

518. Dover: The Dover Traffic Access Protocol (TAP) has been deployed again this morning (1 February) as the port continues to experience high volumes of HGVs. Kent Highways said TAP had been applied on the A20 at Aycliffe. The move was made to prevent port-bound traffic from disrupting the local road network and the A20 through Dover town. The Port of Dover said last week “Customers are asked to prepare accordingly and allow plenty of time for their journey during a period when several ferries being away on refit and external highway works have impacted operational capacity alongside more burdensome border control processes”.

517. Red tape getting worse: The British Chambers of Commerce say 60% of UK exporters it surveyed in November 2021 reported difficulties in trading with the EU, an increase from 49% in January 2021. William Bain, of the BCC, said freeing up the flow of goods and services into the EU is essential, adding: “No-one is expecting goods to flow as freely across the channel now as they did prior to Brexit. But the way the trade agreement is being interpreted in 27 different EU countries is a major headache for UK business, especially smaller firms without the cash reserves to set up new EU based arrangements.”

516. Trade: Figures from the German ifo Institute show the UK’s share of EU27 goods exports fell from 6.2% in 2019 to 5.2% in 2021, while its share of EU27 goods imports fell from 3.9% to 2.6% over the same period. “Some of the negative impact of Brexit on economic performance and trade already took place before the UK left the EU in 2020,” says Lisandra Flach, Director of the ifo Center for International Economics. The UK’s share of EU27 goods exports fell from 7.1% in 2015 to 6.2% in 2019. Its share of EU27 imports fell from 4.4% to 3.9% over the same period. More trade was then diverted away from the United Kingdom as the pandemic progressed, added the institute.

January 2022 ⇓
515. Worsening pig crisis: NFU president Minette Batters and National Pig Association chair Rob Mutimer have written a joint letter to DEFRA secretary, George Eustice, calling for an urgent summit to address labour and supply-chain concerns. The national pig herd has lost-one tenth of all sows over the last six months, farmers’ associations have revealed, after breeders were forced into a massive cull caused by a shortage of labour in abattoirs. They say measures introduced to support the industry have so far delivered “minimal benefit” to pig producers.

514. Arms sales: UK arms manufacturers have been hit by long delays in attempts to export weapons overseas because of Brexit red tape, a leading trade body has told MPs. The Engineering and Machinery Alliance (EMA) said some firms are “waiting for up to six months” for government licences to export into the EU – despite the target time for approval being two weeks. Jack Semple, director of policy at the alliance, told MPs on the international trade committee that the industry blames the Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) for failing to anticipate time-consuming Brexit red tape.

513. Antibiotics: The UK risks falling behind in the drive to reduce the use of farm antibiotics after an EU ban came into force today (28 January) on the routine administration of antibiotics to groups of healthy animals. European farmers will only be permitted to use antibiotics as a preventive measure in exceptional cases when there is a high risk of infectious disease, and then only with individual animals. The UK government has said it will set out proposed regulatory changes as part of a public consultation during 2022.

512. Finance: EU banks could soon be able to lend more cheaply to British corporate entities than UK based rivals according to the FT. The EU’s banks are getting a helping hand because of the bloc’s decision to break with some of the final parts of Basel III, the globally agreed capital rules, allowing them to use less capital when making loans to corporates without a credit rating, reducing their lending costs. One senior executive at a large UK bank said, “There’s a risk . . . that BNP can lend to a load of higher quality UK corporates at cheaper rates than UK banks . . . Open markets only work if everybody is playing by global rules”.

511. Brexit costs: Avara Foods, a poultry supplier responsible for 20% of UK production has seen a fall in profits for the year ending May 2021 and have also announced the closure of their duck business. According to their annual report Brexit involved a “significant investment” in administration costs to manage the transition and enable it to continue to export fresh product to the EU. The company’s ongoing additional admin and logistics costs relating to Brexit are £2.5m a year.

510. Regional funding: A new analysis from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP), PACE at Teesside University and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) shows the north is ‘set to lose out on £300m‘ as regional economic funding drops after Brexit. The European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund and Local Growth Fund saw an annual £2.1bn spent in England, their post-Brexit replacements of the Shared Prosperity Fund and Levelling Up Fund will be worth just over £1.4bn.

509. Northern Ireland: Construction businesses in Northern Ireland are facing higher prices for some screws and bolts due to a trade dispute between the EU and China. The EU is due to start applying import duties of almost 90% on some Chinese products as an “anti-dumping” measure. This is when the EU determine a foreign company is exporting a product at a price lower than it normally charges on its home market. The NI protocol means the EU’s anti-dumping measures still apply in Northern Ireland.

508. Dover: The Unite union have told ITV that the queues of lorries outside Dover are a “direct consequence” of the introduction of additional border procedures at the beginning of the year. Hauliers now have to use the Goods Vehicle Movement System (GVMS), a new IT portal, to obtain customs clearance at ports which Unite estimates is adding around 10 minutes to boarding times for every vehicle, causing severe delays. Adrian Jones, Unite’s national officer for road transport, said: “The fact the GVMS system has been in place for nearly a month is especially alarming because it suggests this is not initial teething problems but the new normal. Drivers fear the problems are only going to get worse, not better, as tourism returns to normal and trade picks up. Delays are only going to get longer.”

507. Welsh ports: Ian Davies, boss of Stena Line’s UK ports has said Holyhead and Fishguard saw a 30% drop in traffic in 2021 because of the new post-Brexit trading relationship with the European Union rather than the pandemic. Freight volumes across the Irish sea were roughly the same but Irish hauliers were shunning the so-called land bridge and opting instead for the slower and more expensive direct sea routes to avoid new post-brexit checks and paperwork.

506. Australian Wine: Australian wine producers are complaining that any benefits from a post-Brexit trade deal will be more than wiped out by proposed changes to UK taxes on alcohol. Industry lobby group Australian Grape and Wine estimates that the tax hikes will cost an additional £70m, adding 40p to the price of every £5 bottle of the country’s drink bought by British consumers. This compares to a forecast £26m gain from the trade deal.

505. Alcohol duty: The Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) is urging its members to oppose the government’s alcohol duty reforms which are being introduced after Brexit. They say the chancellor’s plans will increase duty overall by some £250m a year with spirits paying the highest rates. The WSTA claim it is not “economically rational to differentiate duty rates on the strength of product as sold.”

504. Intellectual property: The Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (CITMA), in written evidence to a House of Lords committee last year, have estimated that the financial impact of UK attorneys losing the right to represent clients at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is likely to be between £789million and £1.7bn per year. Currently, UK practitioners no longer have a right of representation at the EU Intellectual Property Office which is limited to those within the EEA although EEA practitioners will continue to have a right to represent their clients at the UK IPO.

503. Dover: The boss of the Port of Dover is calling for urgent talks over plans for biometric checks at the port. CEO Doug Bannister, said the proposed biometric checks were “unsafe” adding, “As currently designed, the biometric checks work well at an airport or a rail terminal, but they’re not designed for a busy roll-on, roll-off ferry terminal”. Transport select committee chair Huw Merriman echoed those concerns and described potential delays as a “disaster” for Kent. Merriman said, “That per-vehicle movement will end up causing a 17-mile delay back into Kent and that would be a disaster for the local economy and a disaster for trade as well”.

502. Clearing: Brussels is planning to extend its temporary permit allowing European banks and fund managers to use UK clearing houses until June 2025. But, Mairead McGuinness, European commissioner for financial services, told a meeting of Ecofin, the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council, on Tuesday that the commission would shortly begin consultations which will “feed into a strategy on clearing to reduce in the medium term our over-reliance on UK [clearing houses],” Many are unhappy about the financial stability risks to the bloc from €83trillion of open Euro derivatives contracts being cleared in a market that is not in its direct oversight.

501. Channel migrants: Amid criticism of plans for the armed forces to take over Channel operations to limit migration, it has emerged that over the past two weeks, 773 people have reached the UK by boat – which is more than the total for the first two months of last year. The total number of migrants who made the crossing in 2021 was treble that of 2020. Defence minister James Heappey told MPs intercepted asylum seekers could not be returned to France without French permission, which has not been given.

441. HGV Drivers: The government scheme to bring 4,700 HGV drivers over on a temporary three-month visa has attracted approximately 200 drivers in total and is now closed to new applicants, according to Home Office migration minister Kevin Foster. Appearing before the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week Foster told MPs that “around 200 visas” had been issued.

440. Fishing: UK Fisheries, owners of the UK’s biggest trawler The Kirkella, have described a new government deal with Norway to win back fishing rights following Brexit as “too little, too late” and say they are “absolutely devastated for the crew” as the new quotas offered just one week’s work. The Kirkella has been laid up at its base in Hull since December 2020. The self-employed, 30-strong crew were paid per trip and have been “sold down the road”, according to first mate Charlie Waddy.

439. Australia trade deal: The post-Brexit trade deal signed with Australia last week will see British agriculture, forestry and fishing take a £94m hit, the government’s own impact assessment (IA) shows. There is also an expected £225m hit to the semi-processed food sector, which includes tinned products, as part of a “reallocation of resources within the economy”. The IA refers to Australia as a “large, competitive producer of agricultural products”, making clear the “potential for the deal to result in lower output for some agricultural sectors [in the UK] as a result”.

438. Welsh farming: Farmers’ Union of Wales President Glyn Roberts says Brexit has restricted access to their main farming export markets on the Continent in ways which are only just beginning to be felt. Meanwhile, UK government cuts to Welsh rural funding – in direct contradiction to promises made repeatedly by those who advocated Brexit – have added to the pressures on Welsh agriculture, the rural economy and Welsh government, he said. The FUW have made no secret about how they regard the prospect of liberal trade deals with countries such as New Zealand and Australia and have regularly raised concerns.

437. Stormont: According to Northern Ireland Finance Minister Conor Murphy, the power sharing executive is more than £100m short as a direct result of Brexit. Only around a fifth of the £70m expected to replace European Union Structural Funds is being received and cash allocated by the Executive to the Department for the Economy to maintain European Social Fund and Regional Development Fund programmes will not prove possible again.

436. Scotland: James Cook, Chief News Correspondent for The Nine programme on BBC Scotland catalogues the impact of Brexit on a number of Scottish food and restaurant businesses. The issues include Labour and product shortages, struggles to obtain stocks, higher customs charges and lower profits. Anna Christopherson, a restaurant owner in Edinburgh saw her chain, Boda Bars, struggling to pay rent and bills. “It’s been horrendous,” she said, “Brexit has been massive, we’re going to see that for the rest of our lives, I think”.

435. CE Marking: In a blow to government plans to develop a UK standards regime, a survey of 1,000 businesses by the British Chambers of Commerce shows just 8% of UK exporters want to drop the European CE marking system on 1 January 2023, according to the FT. Some 59% of BCC members that rely on the quality assurance marks to place products on the market said that they favoured a return to recognising the CE mark and “are not persuaded by the case for ditching CE marking in Great Britain”.

434. Irish market: Brexit has driven a sharp decline in trade between Ireland and Britain this year but the drop has been largely offset by an increase in cross-border trade, according to fresh analysis by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Irish Department of Finance. Over 40% of Ireland’s imports from the United Kingdom overall came from Northern Ireland in the first half of 2021 — up from just 6% in 2015 while imports from Britain represented just 7.2% of total Irish imports in the first half of 2021, down from 23% in 2015. Irish exports to GB have fallen from nearly 11% of overall Irish exports in 2015 to just over 6% total in the first six months of the year.

433. Daffodils: Millions of daffodil stems will be left to rot in the fields this spring, as Cornish growers face a critical labour shortage that they fear could spell the end of the entire industry. Some expect up to 75% of their crop will be left unpicked. Last season around 275 million stems were left in the ground and this coming season looks set to be even more challenging. James Hosking, of Fentongollan Farm, near Truro said, “If we can’t recruit more pickers, there won’t be a daffodil industry left. The situation is very grim”.

432. French traders: French market traders operating the Norman Market in St Helier, Jersey are running an ‘everything-must-go’ clearance of their food – because Brexit restrictions mean they cannot take it home. Christine Bonhomme, director of Maison de Normandie, the organisation that helped bring the market to the Island, said the issue had sprung from a change in administrative procedures after Brexit came into force earlier this year

431. Trade deals: The Trade Justice Movement has criticised the government’s free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia, a country they say which is well-known for its lack of action on climate change. A 2021 report put it last of 193 UN member countries on sustainable development. TJM say the FTA impact assessment acknowledges that increasing bilateral trade will lead to a 31-40% increase in annual greenhouse gas emissions associated with transport of UK-Australia trade and “is likely to increase beef exports to the UK, one of the drivers of deforestation in Australia”.

430. Irish border tensions: News that the UK government has dropped its demands for removal of the role of the ECJ from the Northern Ireland has elicited a furious response from Lord Dodds, the former deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. He issued a veiled threat of “action” unless the UK restores the option of pulling the plug on the Northern Ireland protocol by using the article 16 process.

429. Immigration: The Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA) has launched a lawsuit against the Home Office for breaching the terms of the withdrawal agreement (WA). The IMA claim EU citizens will lose their rights to live in the UK if they don’t convert their pre-settled status to settled status within five years of being granted status. The pressure group, The3million, warned the IMA in February that the UK’s settlement scheme for EU citizens was incompatible with the terms of the WA.

428. Chemicals: Environmental groups are warning that the government’s proposed post-Brexit chemicals regime to replace the EU REACH system puts UK safety standards at risk, according to the FT. The groups say that the UK will rely in part on voluntary submissions from industry which could allow dangerous chemicals to “fall through the cracks”, creating a “major weakening” of the UK’s safety regime compared to EU membership, and risk the UK being a “dumping ground” for hazardous substances.

427. Food exports: The Food and Drink Exporters Association have reported exports down 4.1% in the nine months to the end of September – a loss of £2.7bn – driven largely by a fall in EU exports of 13.9% compared to 2020 and 23.7% compared to 2019. Exports to Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain were particularly badly hit, continuing the trend seen over the last four years. Exports to Ireland, the UK’s biggest overseas market, fell 21.2% compared to 2020 and 25.1% compared to 2019 – a loss of nearly £0.75bn in sales.

426. Van drivers: Drivers of light vans wishing to enter the EU, EEA or Switzerland after May 2022 will need to have a “goods vehicle operator licence.” The licence will cost van drivers up to £1,100, a significant burden for solo operators, industry leaders said. Drivers will also have to pay £257 in an application fee and a further £401 for the licence. Another £401 “continuation fee” will be payable every five years to retain the licence, according to gov.uk.

425. Agriculture: Neil Parish, Tory chair of the Commons environment committee, has warned Brexit is “destroying” British agriculture, and he condemned immigration minister Kevin Foster for ignoring a recommendation to make it easier to bring in EU butchers and other workers – leading to a huge shortage. Parish warned that planting of vegetables was down 25% and poultry production by 12.5%, since Brexit. He said, “I thought Brexit was about encouraging production in this country, not discouraging it. This is down to labour shortages”.

424. Asylum seekers: The UK’s withdrawal from the Dublin System and the EU’s common European asylum system means that the UK can no longer return applicants to EU member states, adding another “layer of desirability” to the UK as a destination for asylum seekers according to the think tank UK in Changing Europe. As of November 2021, the UK has seen a 20% increase of asylum applications (in comparison to 2020), with the Channel crossings becoming the main route, as three times more people crossed the Channel in small boats

423. Trade: The Daily Express report that Ireland has opened a new goods terminal in Dunkirk as a gateway to Europe. Eamonn O’Reilly, CEO at the Dublin Port Company, told the FT that because of the customs red tape introduced when Brexit put a customs border down the Irish Sea, trade is increasingly going direct to the EU. Dublin Port’s trade is down to 50% with the UK compared to two thirds before Brexit. Mr O’Reilly added: “I think it’s permanent . . . It’s turning back the clock. History suggests to me that [this trade] won’t come back.”

422. Trade: The Centre for European Reform’s latest “cost of Brexit” trackers says in October 2021 UK goods trade was 15.7%, or £12.6bn, lower than it would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU’s single market and customs union. This is worse than September’s 11.2% (see 397 below) because trade grew more rapidly in October in ‘doppelgänger UK’.

421. Import controls: Nearly a third of British importers of EU goods are “not at all prepared” for full post-Brexit customs checks that begin on 1 January, according to a survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD). Three in ten firms said they were not at all prepared for the change, with 37% of small businesses and nearly a quarter of large ones saying they were not ready. From New Year’s Day a six-month grace periods will end and companies importing goods will need to make immediate customs declarations to HMRC and pay any tariffs due.

420. Investment: Figures from the ONS in The Financial Times have revealed that business investment in the UK “fell off a cliff” in mid-2016 immediately after the Brexit vote and has failed to recover since. It is down 10% on the second quarter of 2016, while over the same period, business investment grew by 8% in the eurozone and by nearly 20% in the US.

419. Trade: The British Chambers of Commerce, have said that the recent uplift in trade with the EU following a difficult start to 2021 is not being sustained. In October it tipped back into reverse. William Bain, Head of Trade Policy at the BCC, said: “This is a warning sign. Although the data is a one-month snapshot it feeds into a detectable trend of a levelling off of the recent improvement in UK-EU trade in goods following a very difficult start to 2021.” ONS figures show goods imports from the EU fell by 3.6% in October and goods exports to the EU fell by 2.7%.

418. Galileo: Professor Sir Martin Sweeting founder and executive chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), a corporate spin-off from the University of Surrey, has told the Science and Technology Select Committee that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU means UK suppliers like SSTL will not be allowed to bid for future upgrades. Satellites 27-28 were launched last month, the first using Galileo’s own Control Centre, thanks to a hugely demanding upgrade from an industrial consortium led by GMV in Spain. See also 47 below.

417. Horizon: The EU is blocking the UK from its flagship Horizon research programme because it does not “trust” the British Government after threats to tear up the NI protocol. Non-EU countries Georgia, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia were all granted associate membership of Horizon on 7 December. An EU spokesman told The Telegraph: “The UK’s association to Horizon Europe and other EU programmes will be finalised in due course. This requires a level of trust that the attached conditions will be complied with.”

416. Travel: Under the nationality and borders bill, non-Irish EU citizens living in the Republic will have to apply online to obtain pre-travel clearance from the UK in order to cross the Border under proposed new immigration laws. These EU and EEA citizens will be required to apply for a US-style visa waiver known as an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before entering the UK, including when crossing the land Border into Northern Ireland.

415. Global trade: A member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee has produced a chart showing that Britain’s trade flows (imports plus exports as a share of GDP) have fallen by “far more than in any other G7 country” since 2009. Michael Saunders said Britain has become “less globalised with the effects of the pandemic exacerbated by Brexit”.

414. Trade: The National Audit Office has published a report on the government’s trade negotiations so far. It concludes the range of projected long-term economic benefits for secured and proposed free trade agreements with Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US, is between 0 and 0.16% of GDP, equivalent to £0–£3.4bn. This compares with the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasting a 4% fall in GDP (£85bn) due to leaving the single market.

413. Delays: A survey by the French Chamber of Great Britain has found delays to cross-Channel trade are still worsening almost a year after Brexit checks came in. The report highlights rising costs and key staff shortages. No less than 79% of firms trading with France reported hold-ups in the three months to September, 6% more than in Q2. Some 82% of firms say logistic costs have risen for imports and 43% for exports.

412. Construction: UK construction workforce lost 175,000 last year a study by the Construction Industry Training Board has found. Some blame Brexit, but UK nationals appear to be leaving the UK industry at the same rate as foreign-born workers. Federation of Master Builders CEO Brian Berry, calling for more home-grown talent, said: “The fall in the number of construction migrant workers over the last three years is not surprising and helps to explain why many small construction companies have had to turn down jobs because of the lack of available workers.”

411. Steel: The Welsh LibDems have accused the government of a “rigid and inflexible Brexit ideology” that is placing Welsh steel jobs at risk. Welsh steel output has fallen by 20% since 2015 and exports to the EU have plunged by a third. The ongoing row over triggering article 16 of the NI protocol means the US is refusing to lift tariffs, placing steel jobs in Wales at further risk.

410. Northern Ireland: The British and Irish governments have jointly published the findings of an Independent Reporting Commission, formed five years ago as part of wider efforts to sustain the power-sharing administration. The report says Paramilitary gangs pose “a clear and present danger” to commit violence fed by post-Brexit tensions.

409. Drones: The future of the UK drone industry, one of Britain’s prime opportunities for growth, and many other UK-based manufacturing exporters, will be severely threatened once the UK’s eligibility for the EU’s CE accreditation regime expires at the end of December 2022. Robert Garbett, CEO of Drone Major Group Limited, has warned of the need to speed up post-Brexit accreditation and establish a clear pathway to United Kingdom Certified Assessed (UKCA) accreditation ahead of the fast-approaching deadline.

408. Pigs: At least 16,000 healthy pigs have been culled and incinerated in the UK since the summer due to a shortage of capacity in abattoirs. Pig farmers are facing a perfect storm of issues preventing them from getting a growing backlog of pigs off their farms and into processing facilities. These include a lack of butchers linked to the government’s post-Brexit migration policies and China’s refusal to lift covid-related embargos on pork exports. See also 391 and 282 below.

407. Wildlife: The UK’s three largest nature charities say the government’s scheme to replace the common agriculture policy and pay farmers for managing land more sustainably, restoring nature and tackling climate change is a huge disappointment. Craig Bennett, CEO of the Wildlife Trust, said the plan “shows a shocking lack of ambition which does very little to address the climate and nature crises” and “nature-friendly farmers look set to lose out too”.

406. Seed potatoes: Seed potato farmers continue to face a post-Brexit struggle. As a third country, producers in the UK now require separate technical listings to export to the EU. Richard Thomson MP for Gordon said Europe was the industry’s “largest and most lucrative market” but that Brexit and the UK government’s determination not to agree continued alignment on food standards, “is putting this trade at grave peril”. See also Downside 4 below.

405. New border controls: HMRC is reminding traders to prepare for more customs changes that come into effect on 1 January 2022. Importers will, inter alia, need to make import customs declarations for each consignment and exporters will need to state their goods comply with rules of origin to avoid tariffs. If unable to provide supporting evidence the EU customer will be liable to pay the full (non-preferential) rate of Customs Duty and HMRC may also charge the exporter a penalty.

404. Kitchen retailer: A 109-year-old kitchen retailing business is to permanently close as a result of covid lockdowns and Brexit supply issues. Ken Thompson, owner of Bussens & Parkin in Mildenhall in Suffolk, says supply delays and Brexit bureaucracy have left him with no choice but to put his store into involuntary insolvency. He said business had reached a point where it was making no profit.

403. Welsh ports: The ferry company Stena Line says that trade is down 30% at its Welsh ports and that it was apparent “Brexit is not just a short-term issue”. The firm is now preparing for checks to be introduced at the UK side but said it was committed to the ports in Wales. Ian Davies, Head of UK Ports at Stena, said the next priority was helping customers deal with the new checks from 1 January on the UK side of the border with the EU as these have so far been delayed by UK government.

402. Irish customs revenue: Brexit and an increase in online shopping have seen an “explosion” in the Irish state’s customs duty haul, almost doubling it to €458m so far this year. The Irish public accounts committee was told the authorities are dealing with up to 700,000 customs entries a day, and that it expects an overall 30-fold increase on the 1.8m entries it used to handle annually prior to Brexit.

401. Banks: The boss of HSBC has warned banks and their clients of rising costs if Brexit fragments European financial markets. Noel Quinn, CEO of HSBC, said there is a real “risk of fragmentation increasing costs” in the banking sector. Several global banks are planning to shift their workforce to EU cities to avoid greater friction stemming from Brexit. HSBC is planning on moving about 1,000 investment bankers from London to its Paris office

300. Car exports: Volatile energy prices and the cost of complying with EU regulations post-Brexit are blunting the industry’s competitive advantage, the sector’s trade body has said. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) say costs, measured in time and resources, had increased as a result of leaving the EU, with 60% saying the extra expense for trading with the bloc was a “much more significant rise than other export destinations”.

299. Inflation: The latest Royal Bank of Scotland purchasing managers index (PMI) suggest companies are having to pass on the rising costs of materials, pay, logistics, covid and Brexit. Costs were reported to be rising at their quickest rate since 2008 and RBS said firms raised average charges “to a degree unseen” in two decades.

298. Export slump: Details published by HM Revenue & Customs show that, from the period ending June 2021, Scottish exports decreased by 14% compared to the previous year – the highest in the UK. The SNP say Boris Johnson must answer for the “catastrophic economic vandalism” created by Brexit.

297. Entertainers: British opera singer Dame Sarah Connolly has warned that Britain will lose its placing among the world’s leading musical nations if younger performers and instrumentalists are not easily able to work abroad again. She says, “Without some kind of situation where British musicians can spend a significant amount of time in Europe, establishing their careers, I am very concerned that [we will lose] what we have at the moment.”

296. Film industry: The television producer behind HBO’s Game of Thrones has blamed Brexit complications as the reason why a new German science-fiction drama is not being filmed in Northern Ireland. Frank Doelger said, “All of the rules and regulations about equipment going back and forth, transport from Northern Ireland, became something much more complicated.”

295. Food shortages: New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest 17% of adults claimed to have been unable to buy essential food items in the last fortnight because they were not available, representing up to eight million people. Almost a quarter said the same for non-essential food items.

294. Bank payments: British banks face IBAN payment issues across EU as GB payments begin to be refused. IBAN is an EU system for identifying bank accounts across national borders. Many users report discrimination being a major problem as a number of companies across Europe began to refuse Euro account bank details “if they contained the country code ‘GB’” according to a report in City AM.

293. Milk: Some British dairy farmers have been forced to destroy tens of thousands of litres of milk due to rising costs, labour shortages and an acute deficit of truck drivers which has strained supply chains to breaking point, farmers said. A post-Brexit shortage of workers exacerbated by the global strains of the covid crisis has sown chaos through supply chains according to Reuters.

292. Cruise ship workers: Cruise ship workers are leaving the industry in droves due to crippling post-Brexit visa rules, a veteran of the industry has claimed. Jean Williams tells The Mirror says her life is being “destroyed” and the livelihoods of many of her friends “sacrificed” thanks to new employment rules which mean many cruise firms are refusing to hire British workers.

291. Shortbread biscuits: Walker’s Shortbread in Scotland is facing a labour shortage crisis due to Brexit. The well-known 123-year-old brand famous for its tartan souvenir tins, faces a shortfall of 200 workers following the pandemic and Brexit. Joint MD Jim Walker said: “We were hoping to make a good recovery this year, but we are now in a situation where we are very short of staff.”

290. Computer chips: The boss of Intel says they are no longer considering building a factory in the UK because of Brexit. CEO Pat Gelsinger told the BBC that before the UK left the EU, the country “would have been a site that we would have considered” but “Post-Brexit… we’re looking at EU countries and getting support from the EU”.

289. Tesco: Tesco is turning to Spanish farmers to supply British consumers with their Christmas food, increasing the number of rail containers of fresh produce from the country from 65,000 to 90,000 by the end of the year. CEO, Ken Murphy, said on Wednesday that the supermarket had ordered 10% more turkeys this year to mitigate any problems

288. Vegetables: Farmers are having to pay up to £30 an hour for picking vegetables as the shortage of workers raises the prospect of Britain having to import more fresh produce next year. The British Growers Association says that seasonal agricultural workers can now earn £1,000 a week, the equivalent of more than £50,000 a year pro rata. Jack Ward, CEO of the association said: “It’s been a complete nightmare, there’s intense competition for labour with all sorts of other industries and lots of reports of people poaching labour off farms to work in the hospitality industry.”

287. Daffodils: Daffodil growers have been forced to let nearly 300 million plants rot in the ground this year due to a lack of pickers caused by Brexit and the pandemic. Farmers warning that unless critical labour shortages are solved before next year’s harvest, many will stop growing the bulbs. Cornwall, which supplies nine out of ten daffodils grown in the UK, has been particularly badly hit.

286. UK citizens living in Spain: British citizens are leaving Spain “in droves” as more stringent immigration rules apply after Brexit, The Daily Express reports. UK citizens can now only visit Spain without a visa for up to three months for tourism and business purposes. Earlier this month, Britons who have been rejected for residency in Spain were given just 15 days to leave the country, and told they risk being classified as illegal.

285. Turkeys: Christmas turkeys are to be imported from France and Poland to make up for the shortfall in UK production after farmers reared one million fewer birds due to labour shortages. In the past UK farmers were able to meet 100% of domestic demand but now supermarkets have been forced to buy from the EU.

284. Stagflation: A sharp slowdown in growth in Britain’s manufacturing industry caused by shortages has prompted Rob Dobson, director at IHS Markit, a producer of a closely watched economic survey, to warn “the UK [is] descending towards a bout of ‘stagflation’.” This is a combination of the low growth and high inflation Britain suffered in the 1970s.

283. Bus services: Stagecoach East Midlands says it is “working round the clock” to tackle staff shortages that are causing Lincolnshire bus services in Skegness and Lincoln to be temporarily cancelled or altered, as the impact of Brexit continues to affect business.

282. Mass cull of pigs: An acute shortage of butchers and slaughterers in the meat processing industry, exacerbated by Covid-19 and Britain’s post-Brexit immigration policy means hundreds of thousands of pigs may have to be culled within weeks unless the government issues visas to allow more butchers into the country.

281. Fishing industry: The Brexit trade deal hailed as a £148m boost to the UK fishing fleet over the next five years will instead cost the industry more than £300m, according to a new report by a former DEFRA official. Britain’s fishing fleet is on track to lose nearly £65m a year as a result of the UK-EU trade deal.

280. Pharmacies: The shortage of HGV drivers is beginning to affect pharmacies with, “the whole supply chain [being] impacted from inbound wholesale depot supply down to outward depot deliveries to pharmacies,” according to a spokesperson for the association which represents large pharmacy operators.

279. Banking and finance: The exodus of talent from London to the EU is causing problems in the City with fewer EU national candidates in London now. So says the head of one recruitment agency in the City – “Hundreds of transfers out of London are being completed as COVID travel restrictions lift and it’s exacerbating the shortage of talent – especially at junior levels.”

278. Paris: The city has become one of the hottest job markets in Europe for finance professionals. France’s biggest investment banks are dangling pay bumps and flexible work arrangements to retain top performers. And the days when junior bankers in France were paid less than their UK counterparts may soon become history. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have all beefed up operations in Paris post-Brexit.

September 2021 ⇓


277. Price rises: UK shop prices rose 0.4% month-on-month in August according to the British Retail Consortium. CEO Helen Dickinson said, “Food retailers are fighting to keep their prices down as far as possible. But mounting pressures – from rising commodity and shipping costs as well as Brexit-related red tape, mean this will not be sustainable for much longer, and food price rises are likely in the coming months”.

276. Turkeys: Brexit could cause widespread turkey shortages at Christmas, according to the chair of the Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association (TFTA). Kate Martin says supermarket shelves are likely to be hit by a shortage of skilled European employees who are no longer available to us.

275. Petrol supplies: Some BP and Esso petrol stations in the UK have temporarily closed, with warning of shortages due to a combination of factors, including Brexit, covid and systemic conditions in the industry which have led to a shortage of qualified HGV drivers.

274. Hospitality prices: Data from a business confidence survey has found hospitality businesses face a storm of supply chain problems and rising costs, and three-quarters of them are likely to raise prices for consumers as a result of the inflationary impact of covid and Brexit.

273. Passports: UK travellers to Europe could be refused entry if their passport is more than 10 years old from the date of issue, even if there are 12 months left on the passport. The new rule has meant that many disappointed travellers have either had to miss out on a holiday, or pay hundreds of pounds for a fast track passport.

272. Christmas trees: According to retailer Christmastrees.co.uk, new Brexit rules, soaring prices and lack of labour have made importing trees more difficult and they warn of a potential shortage of UK grown trees this year.

271. Bonfire night: A Doncaster wholesaler is predicting a 70% plunge in the industry-wide stock of fireworks, blaming changes to product certification post-Brexit, a shortage of labour and increased checks on imports. Richard Hogg, shop manager at Fireworks Kingdom, said importing fireworks had become “very difficult and unstable in the wake of Brexit”.

270. Next year’s harvest: UK fruit and vegetable growers plan to reduce planting for 2022 after unprecedented labour shortages led to widespread wastage of produce, with hundreds of tonnes of crops from broccoli to raspberries left to rot in the fields, according to the FT.

269. Tomatoes: Thanet Earth, one of the UK’s largest salad growing companies based in Kent, have had to destroy £320,000 of stock because of problems finding workers to pick and drivers to deliver their produce, according to local Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale speaking in the House of Commons.

268. Strawberries: Sharrington Strawberries in Norfolk have lost 20% of their crop this year which remains unharvested after losing a third of their seasonal workforce following Brexit despite paying up to 50% more in wages.

267. The City of London: The City is being warned to brace itself for a €900bn per day (this is not a typo) Brexit hit if Brussels ‘plays politics’ with clearing of euro-denominated derivatives in London says City AM commentator Michiel Willems.

266. M&S: After announcing the closure of 11 stores in France, Marks & Spencer has been forced to cut 800 lines from its stores in the Republic of Ireland, including items like free-range chicken, orchids and goods containing Parmesan Reggiano as a result of complex rules and excessive paperwork caused by Brexit.

265. Local Authorities: The cost of creating two new day centres to tackle dementia issues in Kirklees has jumped by almost a third: from £8m to £11m. The increase has been blamed by The Local Democracy Reporting Service on “significant rises in construction materials associated with Covid and Brexit”.

264. Increased duty: UK businesses and consumers have paid 42% more in customs duties on goods since Brexit came into force on 1 January of this year. The jump to £2.2bn is a new record coming mainly as a result of goods imported from the EU failing to meet rules of origin. The figures were obtained by accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young.

263. Energy costs: Having left the EU internal energy market and the day-ahead market coupling arrangements, imported power via the continental interconnectors is now by explicit auction and is likely to result in higher electricity prices for UK consumers in future according to research by energy consultants EnAppSys.

262. Blood tests: The British Medical Association is warning of a ‘catastrophic’ crisis in blood testing as the NHS struggles with a shortage of vials used for blood sample. The main manufacturer, Becton Dickinson, has been blamed for the crisis, but they have suggested the post-Brexit HGV driver shortage could be to blame.

261. Driving standards: The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced that HGV driving tests are to be relaxed to allow 50,000 more to be taken in an attempt to tackle the shortage of lorry drivers ahead of Christmas. For example, reversing, uncoupling and recoupling trailer tests will removed – and drivers will be tested separately on this by a third party.

260. Pollution: The Environment Agency has advised polluters that dumping raw sewage into rivers and the sea will be allowed as the discharge of effluent “without meeting the conditions” of their permits. It comes as businesses struggle to obtain water treatment chemicals because of supply chain disruption at ports blamed primarily on Britain’s departure from the EU.

259. Construction: Jewson, one of Britain’s biggest builders’ merchants has warned of shortages of materials as the industry struggles under mounting pressure from the deepest supply chain crisis in decades. It comes amid growing disruption linked to Covid and Brexit. “Material and staff costs went through the roof” due to “employee moves [and] overseas worker availability” said Duncan Brock of The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS).

258. Housing: Brexit is being blamed for making the building of affordable homes on a Derbyshire housing site ‘unviable’. Langridge Homes says providing affordable homes on a 47-house scheme at Riddings is not viable after “unprecedented” 24% post-Brexit cost increases.

257. Pigs: Farmers may be forced to incinerate nearly 100,000 pigs due to a post-Brexit shortage of butchers after the profession was excluded from a list of so-called ‘Shortage Occupations.’ Industry figures say slaughterhouses are already becoming starved of qualified workers, with a backlog of 85,000 pigs awaiting slaughter and growing by 15,000 every week

256. Ikea: The home furnishings retailer Ikea is struggling to supply around 1,000 product lines to UK customers due to Brexit and lorry driver shortage with all 22 UK stores experiencing ‘ongoing challenges’ with supply chains, according to The Independent.

255. Coca Cola: LBC claim we may experience a shortage of Diet Coke and Coke Zero in shops as Coca-Cola issued a warning about availability of aluminium cans, the latest in a series of supply chain issues that have affected UK consumers, blamed widely on Brexit, Covid-19 and a lack of available qualified lorry drivers in the UK.

254. Food exports: Exports of food and drink to the EU have suffered a “disastrous” decline in the first half of the year because of Brexit trade barriers, with sales of beef and cheese hit hardest the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) say. Producers lost £2bn in sales, a dent in revenue that could not be compensated for by the increased sales in the same period to non-EU countries including China and Australia.

253. House plants: House plants such as aspidistra, yucca and cactus have become more expensive because of Brexit red tape, as garden centres warn new rules have made it more difficult to import stock according to the Horticultural Trades Association and reported by The Daily Telegraph (£).

252. Beer: Wetherspoons has been hit by beer shortages due to supply chain issues caused by Brexit. The company said supplies of Carling and Coors beer have been hit, with some pubs not receiving deliveries and they have blamed lorry driver and factory staff shortages, LBC report.

251. Buses: Bus operator Stagecoach has been forced to cancel services in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud because of the national driver shortage. The company laid the blame on Brexit and the pandemic according to local news outlets.

250. Rising prices: Food prices are set to rise later this year as the shortage of lorry drivers and more regulatory checks on imported food combine with rising prices for fuel, freight and raw materials, experts have warned in a report in The Financial Times (£).

August 2021 ⇓


249. Books: Authors Hilary Mantel and William Boyd have issued a stark warning that the UK book industry faces collapse if “disgraceful” post-Brexit changes to copyright rules, being considered by the government, go ahead.

248. Christmas workers: A shortage of fruit pickers in the UK is set to spread to warehouse workers in the run-up to Christmas, according to Gary Grant, head of toy chain The Entertainer. Mr Grant said a workforce of largely eastern European migrants work on farms in the summer and swap to picking boxes in warehouses later in the year.

247. School meals: Schools have been warned to prepare for food shortages ahead of the new school year and urged by wholesalers to “stock up” according to The Grocer. The Federation of Wholesale Distributors has again called on the government to look at introducing a temporary visa scheme to allow HGV drivers from the EU to fill vacancies.

246. Paperwork: The boss of lawnmower manufacturer Allets, says they have had “more paperwork in the last five months than they did in the previous five years, as far as exports are concerned” and the company has had to recruit an employee to look after the “hell” of post-Brexit red tape.

245. Christmas: The head of the Co-op supermarket has said that current food shortages were the worst he had ever seen, while the boss of the Iceland frozen food chain warned that supply disruption could see Christmas “cancelled” for some families this year.

244. GB Stickers: From 31 September British cars in Europe must display a UK sticker instead of the old GB plate. This is said to be a sign of solidarity with Northern Ireland, which is not part of GB. The change has not been formally announced but was spotted as a footnote in UN regulations by the AA, which says it has 50,000 items of stock it will now need to change.

243. Shortages: The UK economy has been plunged into a supply chain crisis, with major retailers’ stock levels at their the lowest since 1983 as a result of worker shortages and transport disruption caused by Covid and Brexit. This is reported in The Guardian using retail industry tracking trends provided by the CBI.

242. SMEs: Nearly a third of medium-sized businesses plan to drastically change their operations to cope with the new post-Brexit UK-EU trading relationship, according to a report in CityAM. Research by accountancy firm BDO reveals 32 per cent of mid-sized businesses think they need to alter their business model to remain viable.

241. Students: Students due to start a university year in Spain, which has overtaken France as the top destination for UK students wanting a year abroad, face visa delays, with some unsure whether they will be able to take up their places this year. Brexit means they now need visas. Some have waited more than a month for a visa appointment.

240. Labour shortages: Avara Foods, a chicken and turkey supplier has told Sky News: “Our company is not currently experiencing any significant inconvenience regarding the ‘pingdemic’. Our concern is recruitment and filling vacancies when the UK workforce has been severely depleted as a result of Brexit; this is causing stress on UK supply chains in multiple sectors.

239. Loss of EU funding: Wales is being hardest hit by the post Brexit loss of EU Structural Funds, latest figures have shown. The £373m lost by Wales is more than double that of Scotland (£125m) and most of the English regions that have previously received European Union support, making a mockery of the government’s ‘levelling up agenda,’ say Labour.

238. Brain drain: Nearly half of British business leaders fear losing the UK’s best talent abroad following the pandemic and Brexit, according to new research. Almost a third of respondents at mid- and junior-level said in the survey by MovePlan, a workplace change management provider, and headhunter Hanson Search, that they feel pessimistic about the UK’s chances to compete for the best talent and attract global businesses post Brexit.

237. Loss of EU funding: So called ‘Red Wall’ and other poorer areas of England will lose up to £1bn of development cash this year because of Brexit and despite promises to match EU grants. Just £220m is being made available across the whole of the UK for 2021-22 and no money has yet been handed out at all – even though the financial year is nearly halfway over.

236. Kent: Operation Brock, a temporary traffic management system designed to cope with queues of lorries heading for the EU, due to end by October 2021, is being made permanent, signalling the government expects further cross-Channel disruption.

235. Roaming charges: Vodafone, the UK’s third largest mobile phone provider, will reintroduce roaming charges of up to £2 a day for new and upgrading UK customers who travel in mainland Europe from next year. Customers travelling to Ireland will be exempt. EE and O2 have already announced changes to their roaming charges for European travel.

234. Immigration: The UK’s new net migration statistics show it has gone up to 313,000 over the past year to March, a rise of about one-third from 221,000 a year ago fuelled by 715,000 people who came to the UK over the previous 12 months. This is a four-year high of migration from non-EU countries, where the UK has tighter controls. Getting Brexit done has not seen immigration go down; it has driven it up.

233. Pets: The cost of an Animal Health Certificate issued by an Official Veterinarian, required in order to take your pet to an EU member state, is £180 takes ten days to obtain and is valid for four months. See also item 10 below.

232. Staff shortages: A garden centre in Plymouth is being forced to give away £100k worth of plants for free this weekend due to staff shortages. Team leader Matt Pollard says: “With the advent of Brexit and the departure of many European staff from the UK, we are suffering the same problem as many other businesses in the South West in finding suitable staff who want to work.”

231. Hospitality: More than 90,000 EU workers have left the UK in a mass Brexit exodus, according to The Daily Express. The hospitality sector took a huge hit over the past year due to the UK leaving the EU with the number of vacancies soaring by 342% based on figures from the jobs site caterer.com.

230. Fishing: Government boasts about increased fishing quotas have been branded “codswallop” by industry experts. While quotas have increased the amount being caught has not, because the fish “don’t exist.” Terri Portmann, who advised MPs after Brexit, said: “Fishermen have been stitched up.”

229. Logistics: Brexit has damaged the UK’s position as a gateway to Europe for imported goods and increased red tape according to Robert Larkin, director of Med Freight Services near London. Goods destined for Europe, which once arrived in the UK, now get shipped directly to the EU.

228. Japanese Investment: Netherlands was the top destination for Japanese direct foreign investment into financial services in the years 2017-2020 with nearly US$12bn compared to net disinvestment in UK of just over US$4bn while jobs in UK Japanese financial services companies grew 9% over same period.

227. Standards: Components for cars and fridges could fall into a legal limbo as Brexit red tape holds up supply chains due to a lack of capacity for testing certain goods ahead of the 1 January 2022 UKCA compliance deadline. Manufacturing is at risk from serious disruption because the government has failed to provide a suitable replacement for the EU’s CE safety standards system.

226. Clearing: UK financial regulators appear resigned to losing access to the EU market next year when a temporary equivalence agreement comes to an end. London based clearinghouses may have to offload EU banks and their clients, losing £millions, if not £billions, in revenue by cutting off overnight an entire bloc worth of swaps that need to be traded via a clearinghouse.

225. Travellers: From the end of 2022 UK travellers to EU member states will have to get authorisation and pay €7 to enter the EU’s Schengen Zone. The fee will cover multiple visits over a three years period. The EU have announced that its European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is on track.

224. Poultry: Soanes Poultry near Market Weighton has had to cut back its production by around ten per cent cent because of the twin impacts of the UK’s departure from the EU and the pandemic. The normal 100-strong workforce had shrunk by as much as 20%, mainly because migrant workers from EU countries had gone back home after Brexit and had not returned.



223. Pumpkins: Freshlands Farm, based in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, said it had lost tens of thousands of pumpkins as it had not been able to hire any workers to clear weeds from the fields. In just one field the company had lost half of the 90,000 pumpkins due to weeds.



222. Vegetables: One of the UK’s biggest vegetable producers says it is losing thousands of pounds a week and having to throw away food due to a labour shortage with Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit to blame. The workforce at Alfred G Pearce, based near King’s Lynn, Norfolk, is 20% to 30% down on previous years.

July 2021 ⇓


221. Ex pats: British citizens living in Cyprus are tasting the bitter side of the UK exiting the European Union as they fall victim to Brexit red tape. Lengthy bureaucratic procedures, increasingly difficult transportation, and higher taxes, topped up by coronavirus restrictions, has seen them deprived of their favourite UK made delicacies.

220. Trade: The North East England Chamber of Commerce has written to Boris Johnson to say that Brexit has led to a drop in exports as well as difficulties such as shortage of HGV drivers and increased costs related to added bureaucracy. They fear further damage if the UK deviates too far from EU regulations.

219. Trade: Seven months after Britain’s exit from the EU, the chilly effects on UK trade are being felt. Total exports of UK goods and services were down by 13% (£36bn) and imports down 22% (£66bn) for January to May 2021 compared to the same period in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

218. M&S Sandwiches: The chairman of Marks & Spencer, Archie Norman, has said that exports of its popular gourmet sandwiches to its stores in France could stop altogether, if Brexit results in border challenges, the Financial Times has reported. Norman said that as its products are transported to France every day through the Channel Tunnel, additional border complications could see supply cut off.



217. Milk: Supermarkets could face a “summer of disruption” to milk deliveries if widespread driver shortages continue. Arla Foods, the UK’s biggest dairy supplier, was unable to deliver to 600 shops last Saturday due to dwindling driver numbers, amid fierce competition for specialist HGV drivers caused by a mix of Brexit, the pandemic and tax changes that have prompted some drivers to leave the trade.

216. Vets: The UK is facing a critical shortage of vets, set to intensify as new EU export rules kick in, industry insiders have warned. The number of EU vets arriving in Britain – which has traditionally plugged the shortfall in UK-trained vets – has dropped dramatically compounded by a surge in pet ownership in the past 18 months and Brexit rules demanding more vets to sign export health certificates.

215. Food shortages: Disruption to supplies in Scottish shops and restaurants are largely due to Brexit – not the “pingdemic” – say independent food retailers. They report that one major issue is hauliers from the EU have cut the UK from their routes. Some suppliers in European countries are also finding other buyers for their produce, because of the costs involved in post-Brexit paperwork.

214. Law & Justice: The EU has barred Britain from joining a European accord for recognising civil court rulings, a move that could bump up costs for individuals and small companies seeking legal redress abroad. Britain’s membership of the accord, known as the Lugano Convention, ended in December last year and an application to rejoin had been rejected (see 145 below).

213. The cost of Brexit: While £4.8bn has been allocated by the government to the new Levelling Up Fund, some £12bn has been spent on the logistics of being out of the EU, plus an estimated £40bn in lost trade with Europe since the end of January and £130bn wasted on Brexit from 2016 to 2020, means more than 38 times more being spent on Brexit than levelling up.

212. HGV driver shortage: A leading haulage group based in Wales has pleaded for help over the worst driver shortage the company has seen in its 50-year history, and blames Brexit. “The driver situation is in crisis, it’s a problem that has been smoking for a number of years and now we are on fire,” said Ian Owen, managing director of Owens Group.

211. The cost of Brexit: A new analysis by The Centre for European Reform estimates that leaving the single market and customs union at the end of December 2020 had reduced UK trade by £10bn, or 13.5 percent, in May. The think tank said this was on top of a £8bn, or 10 percent, hit to trade between the June 2016 referendum and splintering away from the single market.

210. EU workers: A recruitment agency in Leicester warns of a big shortfall in EU workers coming to the UK. Ed Vigars operations director at Encore Personnel, said, ‘EU workers have left and aren’t returning … we’ve never seen anything like this in 20 years.’ Warnings include suggestions that 60 percent of vegetable packers have said they’re leaving or have already left.

209. Skiing: Brexit threatens not only thousands of resort jobs, but the future of British ski holidays according to an article in The Telegraph. UK travel companies who once employed thousands of UK staff are no longer accepting applications from British citizens, unless they have a dual passport or a right to reside in an EU country.

208. Classic cars: A report by insurance company Hagerty reveals the extra bureaucracy and paperwork due to Brexit is expected to hinder business. They highlight the Access/Temporary Access Carnet, a passport for goods that guarantees items will return from the EU which involves a 40 per cent returnable bond, means a car worth £1m will need an upfront payment of £400,000.

207. Hauliers: A survey by Haulage Exchange, a logistics software company, shows over half of British haulage firms have already made or are considering moving some operations into the EU due to a “perfect storm” of post-Brexit red tape impacts and driver shortages still hitting the sector.

206. Charity sector: The White Rose Initiative, a small Huddersfield charity, is facing a devastating legal battle that could lead it to ruin after being slapped with a ‘Brexit bill’ for shipping aid to Romania. Their hauliers have demanded an extra £4,000 on top of the agreed £2,600 bill.

205. Takeaways: Research by online food delivery service Foodhub has revealed takeaway restaurants across the country have been experiencing rising costs of ingredients like flour, chips, chicken and cheese and delays at ports because of Brexit.

204. Skiing trips: School skiing trips that rely on British personnel to staff their EU winter camps could be wiped out by Brexit after it emerged they are facing the same obstacles to travel as the music and theatre sectors, according to The Guardian.

203. Haribo: The German confectionery giant, makers of Starmix, Goldbears and Tangfastic, say they are “experiencing challenges” due to a shortage of lorry drivers which is affecting deliveries to all major supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, as well as other shops.

June 2021 ⇓


202. Trade: Flour exports from Britain to Ireland have fallen sharply. The National Association of British and Irish Millers (Nabim) estimate that imports of British flour to the Republic have fallen by up to 25 percent since the start of this year, replaced by alternative suppliers in NI, France and Germany.

201. Horizon: UK scientists have missed out on £1.5bn in Horizon 2020 funds since the country voted to leave the EU in 2016. Campaigners say that the figures reveal the extent to which Brexit uncertainty damaged collaborations between UK researchers and their colleagues across Europe.

100. Northern Ireland: A survey of 1,000 GB retailers has found that almost two thirds of them plan to stop selling to Northern Ireland within two months because of the Irish Sea border.

99. Pet food: The UK’s pet food industry is struggling to export to the EU because of red tape, vet shortages and hauliers refusing to accept animal-based products in case they are stopped at the border. By mid-February, just a third managed to export to the EU in 2021.

98. Language students: Thousands of UK students hoping to spend the year abroad are caught in limbo after facing major disruption to their travel plans due to post-Brexit red tape and costs, in respect of which universities say they received inadequate guidance from the government.

97. Shellfish: Fishermen in Cornwall say some are at risk of losing their homes because of an overnight ban on exporting their product to the EU.

96. Flower industry: UK growers of flowers and ornamental plants have warned that millions of blooms will go unharvested this year after the multibillion-pound sector was not included in a scheme to admit overseas farm workers after Brexit.

95. Trees: Orders for almost 100,000 trees have been cancelled by Northern Ireland buyers because of a post-Brexit ban on the plants being moved from Britain, according to the Guardian. The Woodland Trust alone has cancelled an order for 22,000 trees destined for schools and communities as part of a Northern Ireland greening project.

94. Eggs: Ungraded eggs, second-class eggs that aren’t high enough quality to be sent to the packing center for grading, can no longer be exported to the EU. These unmarked industrial eggs are used for fish-bait farming, rendered, or used in composting.

93. Processed Animal Protein: Farmers have been hit by the loss of EU markets for animal by-products according to the British Meat Processors Association. Rendered meat by-products going into the EU “must have been processed in a region considered as posing a negligible” risk for BSE and “At the moment, [Great Britain] does not have negligible BSE risk”.

92. Trade: There are reports that selling into the single market is becoming financially unviable for some companies. Director of trade facilitation at the British Chambers of Commerce Liam Smyth said the extra time and cost of trade with Europe had resulted in an exodus of British business from the market, which he feared would increase as time goes on.

91. Animal feed: Peter Kersch, managing director of World Feeds, Thorne, Doncaster says his business is being hampered by new red tape brought in in the wake of the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU and fears it will hit hard. Mr Kersch says “We can’t get anyone to transport our products into the EU” due to so many vehicles and consignments tied up awaiting clearance for new red tape and documentation.

90. Silk Industry: Bennett Silks in Stockport says clients on the continent will not accept the extra customs charges and duties, and will simply switch to using EU-based competitors. “Our only chance to retain EU business is to create a distribution centre in France”, which will have the effect of taking jobs and economic activity away from North-West England.

89. Distilleries: Many small UK gin and whisky distillers and suppliers are struggling to ship products to EU customers under new post-Brexit trading rules, the industry has warned. Multiple distilleries told the Financial Times that confusion over paperwork for alcohol shipments was making it next to impossible to ship single pallets of spirits to the EU.

88. Airlines: British cargo, charter and leasing airlines are losing contracts and business to EU rivals. The carriers say they are severely disadvantaged under the new trade regime because the rules allow greater freedom and flexibility for EU-owned airlines to fly in the UK than UK carriers have in Europe.

87. Duty Free limit: Travellers returning from the EU will be restricted to 18 litres of wine (24 bottles), 42 litres of beer and 4 litres of spirits or liqueurs over 22 percent in alcohol – plus up to 200 cigarettes.

86. Chemicals industry: 25 business heads have written a letter to the government expressing concerns about current plans for a new £1bn system of chemicals regulation, and warned it would “hit UK industry hard across a range of manufacturing sectors”.

85. Tax avoidance: On 31 December 2020 the UK repealed the existing law on tax transparency and replaced it by implementing the less strict OECD rules, which may lead to greater tax avoidance and lower tax revenues.

84. Trade deal scrutiny: The government has rejected a Lords amendment to the Trade Bill giving MPs greater scrutiny of trade deals. It means MPs will have less power than British MEPs had in the European parliament for all EU trade deals when the UK was an EU member state.

83. Food exports: Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), has told MPs on the International Trade Select Committee that food exports to Europe have been cut by at least half since the start of January despite the deal.

82. Charity sector: Since January, exports to the EU from ECS Textiles in North Shields have ground to a halt due to border delays, piles of paperwork and confusion over post-Brexit rules, costing charities thousands of pounds in lost donations each week.

81. Trade diversion: A Belfast deli owner has told the BBC they are now bringing a lot of our stuff in from the Republic of Ireland saying, “We can place an order on Monday and it will be here on Tuesday morning. There’s nothing to fill in – not a form, nothing at all”.

80. Overseas payments: UK residents trying to send money to banks and companies in Europe are having their transactions blocked as Brexit continues to cause hurdles and headaches. Those trying to send money abroad now have to provide an additional layer of detail when making payments as the UK is now classed as a third country under European payment rules.

79. Au pairs: Au pairs have been classified as skilled workers under new UK immigration rules and will now require a salary of at least £20,480 to obtain a work permit compared to the £100 per week plus free accommodation before Brexit, making the hiring of an au pair unaffordable for many people.

78. Motorsports: Motorsport UK says an ATA carnet will now be required to temporarily move motorsport vehicles and equipment into the EU. The carnets cost £330+VAT plus a refundable deposit of 40 percent of the vehicle’s value or a non-refundable insurance premium to cover the 40 percent proportion of the value.

77. Bees: A beekeeper trying to bring 15 million bees into the UK says he has been told they may be seized because of post-Brexit laws. Only queen bees can now be imported, rather than colonies and packages of bees. However, there is confusion over whether bees can be brought in via Northern Ireland. DEFRA is working with the devolved administrations to find a solution.

76. Investment funds: London’s smaller investment managers, who have not set up subsidiaries in the EU are struggling to negotiate new post-Brexit trading arrangements in order to continue serving European clients. Smaller funds have been hit disproportionately hard by the omission of financial services from the Brexit trade talks because they have been less able to prepare contingency plans.

75. Fashion: The UK’s £35bn fashion and textile industry is facing “decimation” as a result of red tape and travel restrictions thrown up by the new post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU.

74. Theatres: UK theatres have called for urgent clarification over post-Brexit touring provisions, warning of a major threat to the country’s previously thriving performing arts sector. They say, “even with a Brexit deal, significant obstacles have emerged that threaten our world-leading performing arts exports and imports, which also puts their economic, social and cultural contributions at risk”.

73. Shellfish: The European Union has told the UK shellfish industry that thousands of tonnes of oyster, mussel, clam, cockle and scallop exports are banned from the bloc indefinitely. British fishers, who had been told by government to expect the ban to last until spring, are warning this will be a fatal blow to their businesses. (See also item 25)

72. Ireland: Goods shipments from Britain to Ireland halved in the first month of post-Brexit trade. Despite the exceptionally low inflow of goods from Britain, hauliers were required to provide 760,000 import declarations of various types — more than 43 certified documents per truck — to gain entry to Ireland.

71. Driving: France is allowing UK residents using UK driving licences to continue to do so until the end of this year, but afterwards when the UK licence expires, as photocard ones do after 10 years or when the driver reaches 70 and every three years after, it cannot be renewed to a French address and cannot be swapped for a French licence. The only legal options will be to stop driving or take a French driving test.

70. Steel: Some steel products exported to the EU could face crippling post-Brexit taxes within months, the sector has warned. UK Steel said it was “likely” that for some products, export quotas – the amount allowed under the terms of the trade deal permitted to be exported tariff free – would run out in the first quarter of 2021, after which exports would face a 25 percent tariff.

69. Defence: The Ulster Unionist Party has said that, under the Northern Ireland protocol, the UK Ministry of Defence must now give 15 days’ notice and fill out customs declaration forms before it moves military equipment from GB to NI.

68. Delivery times: British factories reported the steepest increase in supplier delivery times in a survey published by IHS Markit last week for the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia and the USA. IHS Markitt say this is almost exclusively linked to both Brexit disruption and a severe lack of international shipping availability.

67. Japan: Nikkei reports UK car production at its lowest in 20 years “thanks to Brexit”, and coronavirus has added to the declining trend due to uncertainty over EU withdrawal. It is unclear if, after the proposed switch to electric vehicles, Britain will remain attractive as a production base. Toyota and BMW are reportedly reconsidering their optimal strategy and there is no guarantee the next models will continue to be made in the UK.

66. Banks: EU banking authorities have granted open-ended equivalence to US securities clearing houses allowed them to serve investors in the EU. It contrasts with the time-limited agreement granted to UK clearers and raises fears that UK banks will lose out, putting at risk London’s role as a dominant financial centre.

65. Steel exports: South Yorkshire and Derbyshire bosses brand the Brexit deal a ‘total disaster’ set to cost jobs and close companies. Some businesses have already lost customers after the UK left the EU, bringing new inspections, delays and swathes of declarations, tariffs, fees and VAT payments.

64. Pigs: More than 100,000 surplus British pigs have been backed up on farms around the country by Brexit border problems. According to the Financial Times, UK farmers blame increased bureaucracy for a drop in exports as an influx of cheap European meat hits prices.

63. Fishing (Immingham): Delays due to new Brexit rules mean that Icelandic exporters are moving seafood to Europe through Rotterdam instead of Immingham, in North East Lincolnshire. Until December, Icelandic fish has been regularly shipped to Immingham, loaded onto trucks and driven to France and beyond. This is now going straight to the EU market in Europe via Rotterdam.

62. Fishing: Lough Neagh eel fishermen will have to find new markets for a fifth of their catch due to Brexit and the operation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It means finding new buyers for 50 tonnes of eels, worth £500,000, just months before the start of this year’s season.

61. VAT: An engineering company is now being charged VAT at 22 percent on imported goods manufactured by its Italian sister company, which are then sold to another EU country, because it is a UK entity, adding 22 percent to their costs. Managing director David Lee said in a competitive market this is “an absolute killer.”

60. Yachtsmen and women: Almost 900,000 UK boaters are due to be hit by restrictions on how long they can stay in Europe after the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December 2020, a new survey by the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has found.

59. Credit cards: Mastercard will increase fees more than fivefold when a British shopper uses a debit or credit card to buy from an EU-based company, sparking alarm among companies that rely on online payments and concern among MPs over higher consumer prices.

58. Fishing: Boris Johnson has unveiled a £23m fund to compensate the fishing industry for losses caused by Brexit red tape as Scottish seafood hauliers descended on Downing Street to protest.

57. Online retailers: UK retailers could abandon goods that EU customers want to return, with some even thinking of burning them because it is cheaper than bringing them home. They say the new EU trade deal has put costly duties on returns at a time when firms are already struggling.

56. Exporters: British-based exporters are being advised by the Department of Trade to register new entities inside the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely while avoiding the extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit.

55. Wine: UK drinkers face paying up to £1.50 extra a bottle on many European wines while choosing from a reduced range, merchants have warned, as the burden of post-Brexit paperwork takes effect.

54. Dover: Residents feel “betrayed” and “trapped” by the “lies” of the government over Brexit after being told of a huge new lorry park capable of holding up to 1,200 trucks is to be built in a rural idyll which they say will destroy the quality of their lives and wreck the environment.

53. Business travellers: UK business people who intend to carry out paid work in the EU will now need to comply with a host of complex national rules including an ‘economic needs test’ in some cases. The new arrangements have been described as “fiendishly complicated” by Catherine Barnard, professor of EU and labour law at the University of Cambridge.

52. Hauliers: EU hauliers and transport companies are turning their backs on UK business because they are being asked to provide tens of thousands of pounds in guarantees to cover VAT or potential tariffs on arrival in Britain.

51. Artists: British performers will be unable to work in EU countries without a permit. Actors, musicians and comedians fear the new trade will severely curtail the ability of performers to tour in Europe, and will hamper the recovery of the arts after the devastating impact of the pandemic.

50. Horse racing: Relative to arrangements prior to 31 December 2020, the process of moving horses between the UK and the EU is considerably more administratively complex and time consuming according to the British Horse Racing Authority.

49. VAT: New rules mean goods shipped to EU countries are now liable for VAT when they enter the single market. Tax experts VAT IT estimate the levies could add £34bn ($47bn) to the cost of UK trade with the EU.

48. British citizens living in the EU: Britons living in the EU face financial headaches as European banks hike international payment fees and British banks close their accounts.

47. Galileo: Britain has lost access to the encrypted public regulated service of the Galileo global navigation satellite system and will no longer be able to play any part in the future development of it.

46. Ferries: Stena Line has redeployed a ferry, the Stena Embla, away from its intended Birkenhead to Belfast route to meet extra demand for direct shipments from Rosslare to mainland Europe, as traders change supply chains to avoid additional paperwork in Britain.

45. Aviation: UK airlines can no longer offer services between EU member states (eg London-Frankfurt-Warsaw) or domestic services within them (eg Paris-Marseille) and have lost the right to operate onward passenger services from EU member states to destinations in non-member states (eg London-Amsterdam-Bangkok).

44. The Falklands: The Islands are excluded from the UK-EU trade deal. Products coming from the islands to the EU may now face tariffs. It’s a major concern for the economy of the islands, which exports 90 percent of its fish to Europe.

43. Price rises 1: Ford has raised the UK list prices of some of its models, blaming post-Brexit rules of origin tariffs according to Autocar magazine. The Fiesta ST Edition went up by £1,695 between Dec and Jan, with Puma ST getting £1,920 more expensive.

42. Spanish tax increases: UK-based owners of Spanish properties now have a 24 percent tax rate on income. This compares with a 19 percent tax rate previously, before the transition period ended. It is due to Britain becoming a third country. Spanish tax authorities will also no longer allow any expenses to be deducted, which means gross income is taxable.

41. Mobile phone roaming: The UK’s trade deal with the EU does not rule out additional costs for UK customers using their mobile phones in EU countries. The biggest UK operators have said they do not plan to reintroduce roaming charges, but the BBC says it may not be that simple in the coming years.

40. Lorry parks: The government has built a 2,000 truck capacity lorry park on compulsorily purchased land just off Junction 10A of the M2o in Kent, against the wishes of local residents in the village of Sevington.

39. Share trading: The three biggest venues in London that handle European shares saw almost all of this business (about $5bn daily) shift into the EU on the first trading day after Brexit. Chief executive of Aquis Exchange Plc told Bloomberg that 99.6 percent of its European stock trading moved to Paris, described as a “spectacular own goal” for Britain post-Brexit.

38. Food 3: A raft of red tape plus new checks at the border could add £3bn in costs for food importers, according to the UK’s Food and Drink Federation. That’s about an 8 percent increase – some of which could work its way down to prices paid at checkouts.

37. Tech start ups: For the very first time, the European Union will become a direct shareholder in startups. This will be possible via the creation of one of the biggest investment funds in Europe. Brexit Britain will not be eligible.

36. Amazon: Amazon will no longer transfer UK sellers’ goods to the EU in a move set to have major implications for merchants both sides of the border. Amazon has informed its UK sellers that “pan-European FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) inventory transfers will stop between the UK and EU” on January 1 2021.

35. Architects: As a result of Brexit, architects from the UK will have to demonstrate compliance on a state-by-state basis before calling themselves and operating as architects. See also Professional Qualifications below.

34. Business travellers: now face fines of up to €20,000 if they fail to obtain special permits for visits to conferences or exhibitions in the EU after Brexit, as there is no Brexit deal for the service industry.

33. Chemicals industry: now required to operate a separate registration system for the near 5,000 substances made by UK companies, details of which are currently held in the EU REACH database, at an ‘immediate cost’ of about £1bn.

32. Consumer safety: UK loses access to EU RAPEX rapid alert system (also known as Safety Gate)a notification system used by Trading Standards to share information about unsafe products found on the marketplace meaning more dangerous goods and toys could now enter the UK internal market.

31. Crime: UK has lost its access the Schengen Information system, an EU database containing details of criminal suspects. British police accessed the database 603 million times in 2018.

30. Customs declarations: An additional 250 million customs declarations will now be required annually, needing an estimated 50,000 form fillers at a cost of about £7bn.

29. Erasmus: The British government has decided not to participate in the student exchange scheme know as Erasmus, for financial reasons. It will create its own cheaper alternative.

28. EU family members of British citizens no longer have the automatic right to join them to live in the UK and now have to comply with entry criteria including income requirements.

27. Exporting meat products: Exporters of food products of animal origin to the EU are now required to pay for an export health certificate for each consignment costing around £200. This also applies to ‘exports’ to Northern Ireland.

26. Exports 1: At least 50 major UK retailers, including Marks and Spencer and Tesco, are in the process of going through their products lines, to establish how many of them will now be subject to tariffs from the EU. River Island and H&M have both confirmed to ITV News they expect to pay penalty tariffs on some clothing sent between their UK and EU businesses.

25. Fishing 1: The shellfish industry now faces a bureaucratic mountain, with a wave of form-filling, certification and tariffs to deal with. Traders who sell live crabs and lobsters into the EU now expect delays caused by bottlenecks and new rules.

24. Fishing 2: The Yorkshire Post has learned Whitby fishing crews “will be worse off in 2021 than before they left the EU”. DEFRA Secretary George Eustice, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson were accused of “betraying” fisherman worse then before because they “knew exactly what they were doing when they devastated coastal communities”.

23. Food 1: The EU-UK food chain will be “slower, more complex and more expensive for months if not years” according to Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation.

22. Food 2: There is no equivalence agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures to reduce or eliminate checks on agricultural goods, like the EU offered to New Zealand and Japan.

21. Football: UK football clubs can no longer sign under-18s and are restricted to only three overseas signings under the age of 21, and only six foreign players per season.

20. Freedom of movement ends: British people have lost the automatic right to live and work across 26 nations of the EU (excluding Ireland).

19. Freight costs: The cost of moving freight from France to the UK surged to more than four times the usual level, after Brexit and a virulent new strain of the coronavirus complicated supply chains.

18. Manufacturing: After 1 January 2022, manufacturers will need to meet two different standards and will have to label products UKCA for the home market, and CE for those exported to the EU, adding costs to certification, manufacturing and stocking.

17. Meat exports: Government guidance on Brexit, updated on 28 December, states that UK producers of “chilled meat preparations”, are “prohibited” from exporting their goods to Europe as of 1 January. This includes chilled raw sausages, chilled mince, ungraded eggs, and some unpasteurised milk.

16. Medical insurance: UK holidaymakers travelling in the EU now need medical insurance cover. Failure to take out the necessary insurance could result in hospital bills of £2,000 for food poisoning or £14,000 for a heart attack.

15. Mutual recognition: There is no mutual recognition of conformity assessments any more. British authorities are unable to certify goods made in the UK meet EU standards adding costs to domestic manufacturers and suppliers.

14. Netflix: Because the UK is no longer part of the digital single market, cross-border portability of online content ceased to apply from 1 January. UK users travelling to the EU will be unable to access the UK streaming library.

13. Northern Ireland (Irish Sea) customs border: Collectively, traders now need to file 11 million new customs declarations for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

12. Packaging 1: All wood packaging materials including pallets must now be heat-treated and marked according to the ISPM15 international standard. Any business that does not comply could face shipments being rejected and, in some cases, fines.

11. Passport queues: Britons are no longer allowed to use fast lanes at European airports and Eurostar terminals.

10. Pets: To visit the EU, dogs now need to be microchipped and vaccinated against rabies, with a health certificate issued by a vet 10 days before the visit. They must go though a designated TPE (travellers point of entry).

9. Professional qualifications: There is no mutual recognition of professional qualifications any more, which means professionals with UK qualifications no longer have the automatic right to practice or work across the EU27.

8. Road hauliers: UK operators are now only able to conduct one cabotage trip in the EU, while EU trucks have the possibility of doing two cabotage trips in the UK after a loaded inbound movement, according to the Road Haulage Association.

7. Rules of origin: To avoid tariffs, British exporters to the EU need to comply with complex rules of origin to provide evidence of sufficient local content to qualify for tariff exemption.

6. Safety and Security declaration: Around 250 million safety and security declarations now need to be made by UK hauliers, adding extra costs to 50 percent of our exports.

5. Second home owners: UK citizens with second homes in the EU are now only allowed to spend 90 days there, in any 180 day period.

4. Seed potatoes: The EU has banned the import of seed potatoes, in a move which will be a “disastrous Brexit outcome for Scottish farmers”, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claims.

3. Sky streaming services: We are no longer entitled to stream Sky TV outside the UK using Sky Go, Sky Kids, Sky Sports, Sky Sports Mobile TV and Sky Sports Box Office apps. Some Sky apps allow you to download your favourite shows and movies over WiFi before you leave home to watch offline while you’re abroad. This also applies to other streaming services (see Netflix above).

2. Trade 1: Over 150 UK and EU firms have dramatically changed plans due to Brexit, including many who now refuse to supply goods to the UK. The list was compiled by Edwin Hayward, author of Slaying Brexit Unicorns.

1. VAT: EU exporters to the UK are expected to collect the tax at source, and pay to register for the scheme. Most won’t, unless we form the bulk of their market, so “we do not ship to UK” will become more common. This could provide a small boost for UK operators, if they can fill the gap, but it limits consumer choice. (Also see Trade 1 above).

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