Beyond Brexit

• Trade bill vote rejects Lords amendment giving MPs greater scrutiny of trade deals. A power British MEPs had for all EU trade deals till we left the EU.  Source (Guardian)
• ‘The total confusion about post-Brexit rules adds to the distress’: classical musicians speak out  Ten players and administrators on the fallout in government restrictions to EU touring. Source (TheArtsDesk)
• Brexit is destroying music. Why has the government let this happen?  Source (Guardian)
• British musicians touring Europe will now face increased costs and paperwork, and more red tape to cover equipment and crew.  Source (Guardian)
• The National Theatre Halts ‘Financially Unviable’ Post-Brexit Europe Tour Plans.  Source  (Politics Home)
• Theatre designer warns of obstacles for arts workers in Europe post-Brexit.  Source (The Guardian)
• UK £35 billion fashion industry facing ‘decimation’ over Brexit trade deal,  Source  (Irish Times)
• Modelling Giant Warns Of “End Of” British Industry Over Post-Brexit Work Permits.  A major agency which represents Naomi Campbell and Twiggy has warned that models now face a three month wait to work in Europe, effectively killing off their chances at work in the EU post-Brexit.  Source (Politics Home)
• Several UK companies have paused trading with the EU and some have given up entirely.  Source (Financial Times)
• Many EU businesses have stopped deliveries to UK customers because of Brexit.  Source (TheNewEuropean)
• New customs declarations mean more red tape and higher costs for UK businesses.  Source  (TheHerald Scotland)
• The UK on January 1 repealed the EU directive on cross-border tax arrangements, risking more tax avoidance and lower tax revenues.  Source (BDO.co.uk)
• Not Lovin (Brex)It! Due to supply chains following Brexit, there have already been food shortages, including at McDonald’s.  Source (Wales Online)
• Exporters advised by Department for International Trade officials to form EU-based companies to circumvent border issues  (no export sales = no profit for the UK = no tax revenue)  Source (Guardian)
• Cheshire cheesemaker says business left with £250,000 ‘Brexit hole’  Simon Spurrell says his firm lost 20% of sales and will switch £1m investment to France.  Source (Guardian)
• Annual £7.5bn cost of EU trade as bad for business as no-deal Brexit.   Source (Times)
• Ford Fiesta ST and Puma ST prices rise “due to Brexit”. Source   (Autocar)
• Irish Sea border sees hundreds of items disappear from corner shops.  Source  (Newsletter, Belfast)
• Ireland-Wales trade down 70% year on year as StenaLine shifts towards Ireland-France direct routes.  Source  (Financial Times)
• Post-Brexit red tape could add £1.50 to bottle of wine warn importers.  Source  (Evening Standard)
• Truckers face £50 an hour charge waiting for Brexit customs checks.  Source  (Telegraph)
• Brexit charges are hurting us, say small British businesses.  “Jobs lost will be lost here, that is the Brexit reality.”  Source  (Guardian)
• British business travellers face a bewildering return to the EU It’s not just new rules that will cause headaches — but the fact they vary from one member state to the next.  Source  (Financial Times)
• Business travellers will face fines of up to €20,000 (£18,240) if they do not apply for special permits for visits to conferences or exhibitions in the EU.  Source  (Guardian)
• 150,000 British sellers on Amazon and other online marketplaces hit by Brexit charges.  Source (ITV)
• Hauliers who charged €1.50 per kilometre now want €10.  They have raised their rates for trips between the EU and the UK by almost 700% to account for disruption and difficulties finding back loads.  Source  (Trans.Info)
• Brexit Paperwork Sours Belgian Beer Exports to UK. UK is set to slap on VAT of 20% on top of a new export tax of 17.5% for orders over 150 euros.  Source  (Courthouse News)
• 50 oyster fishermen and women laid off because Defra hasn’t even created the form that allows them to export to Europe after Brexit. Source (Falmouth Packet)
• At least £100,000 of tariffs have been slapped on Fairtrade bananas from Africa because of Brexit.  Source (Independent)
• Taxes totalling £800m could go unpaid this year because of border checks on lorries being scaled back to avoid queues at ports after Brexit.  Source (Independent)
• Exports to EU to plunge by more than one-third because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, study warns.  Income per head is forecast to fall by 6 per cent – just 2 per cent less than under a no-deal departure. Source (Independent)
• British manufacturers’ confidence in their ability to compete in the EU market has fallen to its lowest level since records began 20 years ago.  Source  (CBI)
• Brexit border delays could see 142,000 tonnes of food wasted in six months, government estimates.  Source  (Independent)
• Deliveries of items given to charities for sale on the continent have fallen foul of rules of origin requirements, costing charities thousands of pounds.  Source (Guardian)
• Brexit makes it more expensive to say it with flowers.  Source (ITV)
• Number 10 snubs interior design giants’ protests over trade barriers  Source (Evening Standard)
• UK retailers stumped by post-Brexit trade deal with EU.  Source (Financial Times)
• JD boss says Brexit is costing it ‘double-digit millions’ and 1,000 jobs could move to EU.  Source (Mirror)
• Red tape, added costs and plenty of confusion: Classic car firms reveal the toll Brexit has already had.  Source (This is Money)
• Nearly half of UK exporters having Brexit difficulties, survey finds.  Source (Start Ups)
• Brexit woes: small UK distillers struggle to ship gin and whisky to EU.  Source (Financial Times)
• RSHP opens Paris office in response to ‘profoundly regressive’ Brexit.  Source (Architects’ Journal)
• Call for UK to rethink £1bn Brexit red tape plan for chemicals.  Source (Financial Times)
• More ‘Brexit’ companies shift to the Netherlands as uncertainty persists.  Source  (Reuters)
• Covid has damaged our small businesses. Now Brexit might finish them off.  Source  (Guardian)
• ‘We’ve been chucked into the dark ages’ – Racehorse industry insiders on Brexit realities.  Source (Racingpost)
• Cheshire Police officers sent to Kent to help manage Brexit traffic chaos.  Source  (Warrington Guardian)
• ‘An invisible traffic jam of exports’ as shipper anxiety builds.   Source (The Loadstar)
• Sussex medicines firm takes production line abroad in white van to beat Brexit ban.  UK assembly line at standstill as pharmaceutical company sets up in Amsterdam and plans EU expansion.  Source (Guardian)
• Could Brexit Destroy British Fashion?  Source (New York Times)
• Brexit is closing doors for UK architects working in Europe.  Source (Architects Journal)
• Trucking hell – how the Brexit deal put the brakes on European touring.  Source  (West Country Bylines)
• State offers loan support to foreign buyers of UK goods.  Source (Financial Times)
• 20% of UK chemicals registrations face revocation after Brexit.  Source (Euractiv)
• Brexit trade delays getting worse at UK border, survey find.  Two out of three supply chain managers report experiencing import delays of ‘two to three days’.  Source (Guardian)
• Brexit has complicated trade – and that friction will end up hitting the bottom line.  Source (The Grocer)
• Exports to EU to plunge by more than one-third because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, study warns.  Income per head is forecast to fall by 6 per cent – just 2 per cent less than under a no-deal departure.  Source (Independent)
• One-in-four UK exporters looking to cut out EU customers post-Brexit.  Source (City A.M.)
• Brexit challenges threaten to slow manufacturing’s come back in West Midlands – report. The latest Manufacturing Barometer found Brexit issues are causing SME manufacturers in the region ‘significant disruption’.  Source (Business Live)
• Brexit: Lamb exporter to EU ‘making virtually nothing’.  Source (BBC)
• Anger builds among manufacturers as EU customers cancel orders due to Brexit red tape. Government taking days to respond to queries, say struggling businesses.  Source (Independent)
• Brexit red tape is leading to shortages in some UK supermarkets. At least one leading freight forwarding agent is warning that some hauliers may simply refuse to deliver goods to Britain rather than deal with all the revised paperwork and red tape involved.  Source (Euronews)
• Stellantis Deciding Whether to Close U.K. Plant After Brexit.  Source (Yahoo Finance)
• Wine Trade – post-Brexit plans are of “great concern” to the UK trade and risk wine being diverted away from the UK market, affecting all sectors, including the already hard-hit hospitality industry, that rely on sales.  Source (The Drinks Business)
• Supermarket shelves are hit by Brexit port chaos and staff shortages as stores start to run low on fruit and veg.  Source (Daily Mail)
• Brexit Paperwork Sours Belgian Beer Exports to UK.  Source (Courthouse News)
• Exports to EU to plunge by more than one-third because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, study warns.  Income per head is forecast to fall by 6 per cent – just 2 per cent less than under a no-deal departure.  Source (Independent)
• Brexit issues are causing small to medium-sized (SME) manufacturers in the West Midlands ‘significant disruption’. 71 per cent of companies have seen negative price changes within their supply chain since leaving the EU, with the availability of raw materials an issue for 47 per cent of firms.  Source (Business Live)
• Brexit: Concern over plan for wine import papers.  Dozens of UK wine merchants and retailers have called on government to scrap plans for new post-Brexit import papers, warning they already face higher costs and drinkers will lose out.  Source (Decanter)
• Car firms ‘paddling furiously’ to maintain post-Brexit supply chains.  Source (LBC)
• Your parcel is in the post… for two months, thanks to Brexit.  Some customers are having to pay extra customs and courier fees.  Source (The Times)
• UK importers brace for ‘disaster’ as new Brexit customs checks loom.  Exporters badly hit already but KPMG says ‘biggest headaches’ have yet to come’ for importers.  Source (The Guardian)
• Sheffield climbing firm sets up in Holland to beat Brexit damage.  Source (The Star)
• Brexit-linked red tape and higher prices already hitting small South West manufacturers, survey shows.   61% have already seen negative price changes within their supply chain, while the availability of raw materials is an issue for 52%.Some 53% had encountered complications with importing goods and 43% were finding exporting their products more difficult.  Source (Swindon Business)
• Germany’s exports to the UK fell 30% in January. Exports from Germany to the UK started to decline in 2016, when the Brexit referendum took place. There has also been a decline in exports from the UK to Germany. In 2020, exports fell by 9.6% to 34.7 billion euros compared to the previous year.  Source (Trans Info)
• International Road Transport Union Advocacy Director: UK “facing disaster” over new customs checks.  Some UK hauliers had told the IRU that they were exporting 20% of the volumes they had done previously before the end of the transition period.  Source (Trans Info)
• British ports say they are not ready for Brexit customs checks.  Source  (The Guardian)
• Mastercard hikes interchange fees for UK online purchases from the EU. Mastercard has imposed a five-fold increase on credit card interchange fees charged for UK online purchases from the EU, following Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.  Source (Finextra)
• Exodus of foreign workers ‘a threat to UK recovery’.  Construction, care and hospitality industries all at risk from major shortage of employees, say business leaders.  Source (The Guardian)
• UK announces it will unilaterally change Brexit deal with EU, risking new confrontation with Brussels.  Source (Independent)
• VAT changes after Brexit prompt firms to stop exports.  Source (Kent Online)
• UK plc up for sale as overseas buyers eye bargains.  Value of businesses sold to foreign predators continues to break records.  Source (Financial Times)
• Boss of UK pet food producer exposes post-Brexit red tape after sharing image of 72 pages of paperwork he filled out to send order to EU.  He also has to pay an additional £100,000 a year in veterinary inspection fees.  Source (Best for Britain)
• UK goods exports slumped £54bn in 2020 and Brexit will hamper recovery, report finds.  Source (Independent)
• Brexit triggers exodus of Japanese firms from UK to EU.  The number of Japanese firms in the UK fell by 12 percent between 2014 and 2019.  Source (Politico Eu)
• UK food manufacturers face fresh hit from Brexit red tape  From April 21 the EU is introducing new rules on composite foods (pizza, chocolate, crisps etc) that are going to pile new red tape on U.K. food manufacturers.  Source (Financial Times)
• Border checks set to rise and UK relaxes rules for imports. More checks for products entering the EU, relaxation on goods coming into the UK and a decline in exports to the continent has caused concern among the food and drink industry. 12-Mar-2021 By James Ridler.  Source (Food Manufacture)
• Exports to EU plunge by 40% in first month since Brexit.  Source (Guardian)
• Brexit: trade survey finds 74% of British firms hit by delays with EU markets.  Source (Guardian)
• New delays to post-Brexit import controls announced despite tax evasion and smuggling fears.  The UK has announced further delays to post-Brexit import controls, despite warnings the move will be a boon for tax cheats and smugglers.  Source  (Independent)
• Englishman’s haulage company loses £40,000 due to post-Brexit customs checks.  Source (Trans Info)
• Brexit trade barriers to cost UK e-commerce firms £5bn a year, report warns.  Source  (Independent)
• Thousands of firms halt trade with EU.  Of the 17 per cent polled who said that their organisations had halted EU trade in January, 48 per cent said that this had been temporary and 42 per cent said it was permanent.  Source (Times)
• Visa to hike interchange fees for UK customers in post-Brexit move.  Source (Sky News)
• Imports to Ireland from Britain dropped by more than €900 million in January following the end of the Brexit transition period.  Source (The Journal.ie)
• Plants shipped from Ireland take 1,400 mile detour to avoid Brexit headache at Holyhead.  Hauliers worried about paperwork errors holding them up are reluctant to use the port in North Wales.  Source (London Economic)
• Sheffield climbing firm sets up in Holland to beat Brexit damage.  Source (The Star)
• Data shows collapse of UK food and drink exports post-Brexit.  HMRC figures reveal huge year-on-year falls in trade, with whisky, cheese and chocolate worst hit.  Source (Guardian)
• Food and Drink Federation publishes January food and drink trade snapshot. “It is extremely worrying that our exports to the EU have fallen by more than 75% in January. Businesses face significant challenges when trading with the EU and small businesses in particular have been shut out because groupage distribution is not working. In the absence of solutions, EU exporters will face much the same difficulties when the UK’s full border operating model enters into force in 2022.”  Source (Food & Drink Federation)
• Brexit sent UK salmon exports to EU tumbling by 98 per cent in January.  The UK’s export market suffered a total fall of £750 million – a 75.5 per cent decline from the previous January, the FDF said.  Source (London Economic)
• Kidswear indies hit by post-Brexit VAT charges.  Kidswear independents across the UK are receiving unexpected bills for import VAT and customs declarations, as post-Brexit trading rules cause chaos.  Source (Drapers Online)
• Top Business Chief Accuses Brexit of Causing Major Harm to U.K.Adam Marshall, the outgoing director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, was blunt: “I push back pretty hard against anyone who says that all of the issues are simply around adjustment.”  Source (Bloomberg)
• UK food exports drop 75% in first month of post-Brexit trade.  Imports from the EU were also down 25% from £2.6 billion to £1.9 billion.  Source (Euractiv) 
• UK firm to stop using British pork after post-Brexit border problems. Helen Browning’s Organic says it is switching to Danish suppliers owing to bureaucracy, delays and costs.  Source (Guardian)
• British food faces ‘outright export bans’ in wake of EU exit. 23-Mar-2021 By James Ridler  British food businesses face ‘outright export bans’ and ‘structural’ barriers to trade with Europe thanks to bureaucracy linked with Brexit, according to the House of Lords EU Environment sub-committee.  Source (Food Manufacture)
• Brexit: Plant and animal checks to be ‘permanent barrier’ to trade without new deal, study warns.  It rejects Boris Johnson’s claims of “teething problems” – arguing the punishing red tape is here to stay unless agreement can be reached with Brussels on common health and safety standards.  Source (Independent)
• Brexit’s service sector problem: “if you’re a UK company you’re screwed”The services sector accounts for over 80 percent of the UK economy. It was barely mentioned in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and for them, Brexit has effectively meant no deal. But up to now, because services mainly involve people and travel, covid restrictions have largely concealed the impact.  Source (Yorkshire Bylines)
• Brexit: UK cheese firm boss in despair over minister’s export advice.  Co-founder of Cheshire Cheese Company told by environment minister to look at US and Canada markets rather than EU.  Source (Guardian)
• Due to Brexit we have been forced to stop supplying the UK . Please do not select a different country and then ask for UK delivery as we cannot provide this. We have been importing Montessori Materials from Europe from over 10 years and it is now easier to ship to Africa or Asia than the UK.  Source (Montessori Supplies)
• ‘We’ve been sold a dud’: small firms suffer decline in post-Brexit exports.  The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.  Source (Guardian)
• UK exporter faces closure within weeks due to Brexit.  A UK honey exporter is within weeks of closure as hauliers refuse to transport its small loads to the EU due to post-Brexit red tape.  Source (The Grocer)
• Brexit: Trade changes ‘challenging’ for Welsh car industry.  Source (BBC)
• Data shows EU freight forwarders are increasingly rejecting contracts for UK deliveries.  Data from German software company Transporeon indicates that European freight forwarders are rejecting contracts to take loads into the UK. The company say the development is likely the result of increased fears of delays at the UK border.  Source (TransInfo)
• The UK now ‘a micro-climate in Europe’ when it comes to shipping.  “….carriers now see the UK as a feeder port that’s a nuisance to call into, as there are always delays from Southampton to Liverpool,”   And so, carriers either simply do not want UK-destined boxes, or they are charging for the privilege, making us a micro-climate in Europe when it comes to shipping.”  Source (The Loadstar)
• New Impact Report reveals the real cost of Brexit to the UK meat industry.  Dismissing trade disruption at the borders as simply short term ‘teething problems’ is no longer credible. As we near the end of the first quarter of trading outside the EU single market, British meat companies are painting a very different picture. They are reporting systemic weaknesses in the current export system, mountains of red tape and a potential permanent loss of trade of between 20 and 50 percent.  Source (British Meat Industry)
• New customs rules branded ‘illogical’ and ‘disturbing’ at Brexit committee.  The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association said Revenue’s proposed solutions to the issues are ‘not practicable’.  Source  (Belfast Telegraph)
• Welsh ports under threat from post-Brexit trade.  The Welsh government has warned that post-Brexit trading patterns threaten the viability of the country’s Irish Sea ports.  Source (BBC)
• US threatens tariffs on UK exports over digital services tax.  Price of clothing and footwear, ceramics, beauty products and furniture could be hit.  The Biden administration has warned it could slap 25% tariffs on British exports to the US after the UK levied a digital services tax on major technology companies.  Source (Guardian)
• What Brexit changed for clothes, flower and sausage firms.  Source (BBC)
• Brexit: Plant and animal checks to be ‘permanent barrier’ to trade without new deal, study warns.  EU said agreement on common rules ‘on the table’ – but UK would probably have to drop prized right to diverge.  Source (Independent)
• Brexit could rob UK meat industry of 50 per cent of exports.  British meat exporters could lose up to 50 per cent of exports, a trading body warned.  Britain’s meat industry could permanently lost up to half of its exports because of “mountains” of Brexit red tape, a leading trade body has warned.  Source  (London Economic)
• Shipments from UK to EU take twice as long in wake of Brexit, says logistics firm.

  Post-Brexit exports from the UK to EU countries now take 112 per cent longer on average, according to new research.  Shipping company Forward2me has looked at the difference in shipping times between December 2020 and January 2021 – and found that the average for all EU countries jumped to 8.55 days from 4.03, with the highest individual increase coming in at 950 per cent.  

  The parcel-forwarding service, which ships to more than 200 countries, cited various factors contributing to the overall increase, such as DPD stopping its UK-to-EU courier service, increased customs checks, and more paperwork to fill out.  Source  (Scotsman)

• UK shellfish farmers threaten legal action over ban on exports to EU.  Industry claims it was misled by Defra over post-Brexit position and will sue unless trade with union restarts soon.  Source (Guardian)
• Brexit trade disruption leads South West firms to cut staff and move operations to EU, BCC survey finds.  Firms reported concerns about future under new trading conditions.  Businesses in the South West have reported significant drops in exports to the European Union, with some saying they are moving their operations to the bloc amid rising costs and paperwork since Brexit.

  A survey of 500 firms by the British Chambers of Commerce South West (BCC SW) found that more than half of exporters said they had been impacted by the new UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA), which came into effect in January.  Source (Business-Live)

• Brexit has been a disaster for Britain as collapsing European trade puts UK firms out of business. The UK government promised that Brexit would liberate Britain from European trading regulations and herald a bright new era for Britain on the world stage.

  Yet after spending years campaigning for the UK’s exit from the European Union, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his colleagues have been oddly quiet about Britain’s fortunes ever since it left.

  The reason for their silence is becoming increasingly obvious. Since Britain left European trade and customs rules at the start of this year, there has been a dramatic decline in UK trade.  Source (Business Insider)

• Brexit: Scottish dog food firm relocates to France due to export red tape.  The founder of a Scottish dog food business has told how Brexit forced him to move to France after his exports to the EU were halted because of the new trade barriers in place since 1 January.  “The trade deal they agreed at Christmas is very close to as good as no deal,” he said.  Source (Guardian)

• Wine Trade – post-Brexit plans are of “great concern” to the UK trade and risk wine being diverted away from the UK market, affecting all sectors, including the already hard-hit hospitality industry, that rely on sales.  Source (The Drinks Business)

• Brexit: £100,000 of tariffs slapped on Fairtrade bananas from Africa threatening farmers with ruin.  Liz Truss under pressure to explain why punishing levies being charged – despite announcement that UK-Ghana deal was struck.  At least £100,000 of tariffs have been slapped on Fairtrade bananas from Africa because of Brexit, prompting mounting anger that farmers face ruin.  Source (Independent)

• Brexit is tormenting British chocolate makers. Chocolate is Britain’s second-largest food and drink export, after whiskey. “We have to explain, it’s not our fault, it’s not the fault of the producer. It’s Brexit,” In January, exports of British chocolate to Europe fell 68 percent compared with the same period the year before.  Source (New York Times)

• Simon Rattle: ‘Brexit has not had any upside in the arts’ The LSO’s music director talks about how freelance musicians have been hit doubly hard by Brexit and the pandemic — and about his concert to support them.  Source (Financial Times)

• Brexit snags force firms to cut trading ties with EU.  Three in ten British businesses have stopped trading with the European Union since the end of last year, research suggests.  More than seven in ten have experienced problems with trading since the Brexit transition period ended on December 31 and nearly half expect the disruption to continue in the long term, according to a poll of more than a thousand executives.  Source (The Times)

• British chocolatiers reveal how Brexit blighted busy Easter period.  “We’ve lost our entire European trade,” one chocolatier lamented.  Source (London Economic)

• Bikemaker Brompton warns of soaring costs for UK manufacturers.  Group faces accumulation of problems in sign of growing pressure on British companies.  Source (Financial Times)

• UK consumers need clear idea of cost of EU purchases, Which? says. Consumer organisation says many people have been taken by surprise by bills for VAT and import duties.  Source (Guardian)

• Can’t sleep I am incredibly upset yesterday I had to accept a defeat. My guitar wood import businesses no more.

  £350 of duty and licenses on £450 of stock.

  And I was only told of this when it hit the U.K.

  Brexit bonus again.  Source (Twitter)

• Data shows collapse of UK food and drink exports post-Brexit.  HMRC figures reveal huge year-on-year falls in trade, with whisky, cheese and chocolate worst hit.  Whisky, cheese and chocolate producers have suffered the biggest post-Brexit export losses in the food and drink sector, new figures from HMRC have shown.  Source (Guardian)

• Buying a £5,000 bike from Poland has become a Brexit nightmare.  I was asked for £2,000 more in duty and VAT to get it delivered.  Source (Guardian)

• Data from German software company Transporeon indicates that European freight forwarders are rejecting contracts to take loads into the UK. The company say the development is likely the result of increased fears of delays at the UK border.

  The rejection rate for cargo from France to Britain was almost three times higher than the normal Q3 average, while for Germany-UK it was twice as high.  Source (Trans Info)

• Brexit: Trade changes ‘challenging’ for Welsh car industry.  Wales’ automotive industry faces more challenges over future Brexit trade changes, according to experts.  The Welsh Automotive Forum (WAF) said new checks on imports and new rules over where car parts can come from could add to customs disruption when they are introduced.  Source (BBC)

• Wiltshire firm to stop using British pork after post-Brexit border problems.  Helen Browning’s Organic says it is switching to Danish suppliers owing to bureaucracy, delays and costs.  For two decades, Helen Browning’s Organics sausages – which account for about a quarter of its sales – have been manufactured in Germany because of, according to the company, a lack of a suitable factory in the UK. The vast majority (85%) of its sausages, representing 300,000 packets of sausages annually, were re-exported to Britain to be sold to UK consumers.  Source (Guardian)

• British food faces ‘outright export bans’ in wake of EU exit.  23-Mar-2021 By James Ridler.  British food businesses face ‘outright export bans’ and ‘structural’ barriers to trade with Europe thanks to bureaucracy linked with Brexit, according to the House of Lords EU Environment sub-committee.  Source (Food Manufacture)

• Peers ‘dismayed’ at Brexit trade barriers.  New House of Lords report calls on government and EU to do more to reduce trade burden on food and farming sectors

  British businesses face “outright export bans” on some goods and structural barriers to trade with Europe including more paperwork and higher transport costs, according to a new Lords report. Source (Fresh Produce Journal)

• Brexit: UK cheese firm boss in despair over minister’s export advice.  Co-founder of Cheshire Cheese Company told by environment minister to look at US and Canada markets rather than EU.  Source (Guardian)

• All is not rosy for UK gardens as Brexit hits supplies and Covid hikes demand.  Red tape and a labour shortage leave retailers and millions of lockdown gardeners with scant pickings.  Source (Guardian)

• Food Businesses Brace For A New Wave Of Post-Brexit Paperwork Affecting Pizza, Pies And Sandwiches.  The UK food industry is warning that a deluge of new post-Brexit red tape which comes into effect today will increase export paperwork by a third and make some sales to Europe unviable.  Source (Politics Home)

• To Avoid Brexit Disruption, JD Sports Seeks EU Warehouses.  Source (Bloomberg)

• ‘Brexit cost my bicycle business £250,000 extra in just two months, and I can’t see any positives’.

  The extra costs of doing trade with Europe have already wiped out the entire 2020 profits of Frog Bikes in Pontypool.  A Welsh business co-owner says Brexit cost him around £250,000 extra in just the first two months of this year and that he can’t see any positives from Britain’s exit from the EU.

  Frog Bikes, a children’s bike manufacturer which employs around 50 people at its Pontypool factory, has a customer base that stretches across the globe.  Source (Wales Online)

• Brexit blamed by car parts firm for potential plant closure and loss of 200 jobs

  Kautex Textron site faces closure as car manufacturers look to source parts on continent instead.  Source (Car Dealer Magazine)

• Courier service warns ‘non-EU countries will not fill the hole created by Brexit’ as UK exports tumble.

  Exports recovered in February compared to the previous month, but “that is setting the bar exceedingly low”.

  Trade between the UK and EU partially recovered in February, after a steep drop in January following Brexit. However, the Office for National Statistics said exports were still below last year’s levels and imports from the EU had seen a weaker recovery.  Source (London Economic)

• U.K. Aerospace Warns Brexit Deal Threatens Parts Production.  U.K. aerospace-industry trade lobby ADS warned that Britain could lose business to the European Union after the Brexit deal failed to resolve issues concerning design-approval for plane components.  Source (Bloomberg)

• Brexit costs Lincoln manufacturer more than £250,000.  Lincoln-based insulation manufacturer and supplier, SuperFOIL Insulation, says it has lost a quarter of a million pounds revenue as a result of Brexit.  Before Brexit, the family-owned company sold around a fifth of its products to EU customers, much of it through Amazon. Now, EU sales constitute just 2.9% of sales, with the company losing more than £250,000 in lost revenue from EU sales in the last three months.  Source (The Business Desk)

• Brexit Will Ruin More U.K. Small Businesses, Economist Warns.  More small companies are likely to go out of business as a consequence of Brexit, a former joint head of the U.K.’s Government Economic Service has warned a new commission on trade.  Source (Bloomberg)

• 58 years spent on post-Brexit paperwork so far this year.  Karin Goodburn, director general of the Chilled Food Association, said official figures show the UK has issued 89,000 certificates so far this year, up from 806 over the same period last year – a 110-fold increase.

  “If you take 89,000 certs and say it’s a couple of hours each… it comes out at 7,500 days so far this year spent signing certificates,” she told the independent Trade and Business Commission on Thursday, a new body made up of MPs and business figures to scrutinise UK trade deals.

  “And that’s 24-hour days, not eight-hour days,” she added. “It’s 21,000 eight-hour days,” or 57-and-a-half years.  Source (The Grocer)

• Brexit: Sales of milk and cream to EU down 96% and chicken and beef by almost 80%.  Food and Drink Federation pleads with Boris Johnson to ‘urgently’ restarts talks to resolve the crisis.  Sales of milk and cream to the EU are down an extraordinary 96 per cent – and chicken and beef by almost 80 per cent – because of Brexit, new figures show.

  Overall, the trade barriers erected in Boris Johnson’s deal have cost exporters more than £1.1bn since the start of the year.  Source (Independent)

• Brexit Bites:  The Falkland Islands’ Calamari.  Local officials are considering breaking ranks with the UK Government and asking the EU for help.  The main export of the Falkland Islands economy, the Loligo squid – which is processed into more familiar calamari for millions of EU customers – has become a casualty of Brexit.  Source (Byline Times)

• UK’s services sector starts to count the real cost of Brexit.  Although they account for 80 per cent of the economy, services were rarely a priority in the negotiations over leaving the EU.  Source (Financial Times)

• Brexit has cost UK nearly £16 billion in trade of goods since the 2016 referendum, The Centre for European Reform estimates.  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 £7.7 billion, or 11 per cent, in March.

  Furthermore, this was on top of a £8 billion, or ten per cent, hit to trade between the June 2016 referendum and quitting the single market, a period which saw a significant fall in the value of Sterling.  Source (Evening Standard)

• ‘Catastrophic negotiating blunder’ leaves Freeport manufacturers shut out of export markets.  The Opposition suggested that exports to 23 countries with which the UK has signed agreements to roll over deals those nations had with the European Union would be affected.

  Labour said trade ministers failed to remove wide-ranging “duty exemption prohibitions” contained in 23 of those agreements.

  The prohibitions state that any business which has not paid duty on its imports cannot benefit from reduced tariffs on its exports.  Source (London Economic)

• Exodus of EU truckers leaves UK hauliers facing acute driver shortages.  An exodus of EU lorry drivers from the UK since Brexit has left the British haulage and logistics industry facing an acute staff shortage and a looming crisis for industrial and retail deliveries, the sector has warned.

  Industry associations and leading UK freight companies said that unless urgent steps were taken to address shortages, strains now visible within the industry would become evident to the public by the end of the summer.  Source  (Financial Times)

• Oyster farmer: ‘It has been an absolute disgrace by our government’.  Jersey’s largest oyster producer says he stands side-by-side with aggrieved French fishermen and will even support a potential ‘peaceful’ port blockade – if it goes ahead.  Source (Jersey Evening Post)

• UK deliveries coming with unexpected import charges.  Many people are being forced to pay extra import charges for deliveries at their doors.  Residents in Luxembourg are becoming reluctant to buy goods from the UK after Brexit, as they are being faced with import and tax charges they were not warned about when ordering items online.  Source (Lux Times)

• The UK is heading for a decade of Italy-style decline thanks to the ‘long-lasting’ hit from Brexit.  The Resolution Foundation, an economics think-tank, and the London School of Economics said in a report on Tuesday that Britain faced a long decade of decline and underperformance due to its departure from the EU, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, automation, and the expensive challenge of making the economy less reliant on fossil fuels.

  “The UK now faces a decisive decade, as the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit and the net zero transition come together with major shifts in technology and demography. This matters far more than economics. Failing to rise to this challenge risks leaving the nation diminished and divided,” the report said.  Source (Business Insider)

• Post-Brexit product certification rules won’t be ready in time, expert warns. A failure to get the new post-Brexit system for certifying building products up and running by next year could be “devastating” for the construction industry, the former boss of a major products specification body has warned.  Source (Housing Today)

• Report shows steep fall in trade with Brexit having a bigger impact than Covid.  A new Government report issued today highlights the real impact that the ‘double whammy’ of Brexit and the coronavirus have had on UK trade, says the international delivery expert ParcelHero. Today’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) report, ‘The impacts of EU exit and the coronavirus on UK trade in goods’, shows steep declines in imports and exports to both the European Union (EU) and the rest of the world.

  ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘The major new Government report examines UK world trade figures in the first quarter (January-March) of 2021 and compares them to the same period in 2018, before any potential impact of Brexit preparations and the pandemic on exports and imports. This comparison gives the true picture of the damage done to UK trade by both events.  Source (London Loves Business)

• Counterfeit Britain: How the pandemic – and Brexit – has changed the UK’s booming £14bn trade in fakes.  Police and trading standards officers have seized counterfeit goods worth £17.5m in recent weeks. The tide of illicit items from handbags to medicines is a growing global problem – but has Brexit left Britain more exposed to the fakers?  Source (Inews)

• Employers ‘between a rock and a hard place’ on post-Brexit right to work rules

  Tension between employment and immigration rules means right to work issues must be carefully managed, says expert.  Companies are walking a legal tightrope to reduce the risk of being caught out by rules on right to work after Brexit, according to an employment law expert.

  Kate Wyatt, a partner at Scottish legal firm Lindsays, believes firms are finding it challenging to balance the need to be prepared for incoming European Union right to work requirements with not breaking existing employment rules.  Source (Insider)

• Brexit disruption saw UK goods trade with EU plunge by 23% in first quarter

  Exports to Ireland worst affected, official figures show.  Trade with non-EU countries was down by only 0.8 per cent, official figures show. The data was compared with 2018 because that was the last time that UK trade patterns were “relatively stable”.  Source (Independent)

• ‘The UK government has got to intervene’ The smaller Scots firms struggling to stay afloat due to Brexit.  Scottish business groups have warned smaller firms are struggling to stay afloat due to the Brexit deal.  Source (Scotsman)

• Firms expect to see fall in EU trade following Brexit.  Two in five firms that trade with the EU expect to see a fall in business compared to before the coronavirus crisis, a new study suggests.  A survey of more than 700 company directors also found that almost two-thirds were still finding it challenging to adjust to new post-Brexit trading arrangements.  Customs changes and non-tariff barriers were cited as the biggest obstacles by respondents to the Institute of Directors (IoD).  Source (New European)

• Brexit disruptions are UK government’s fault, EU officials say.

  The UK’s obsession with regulation autonomy has “strong implications”, Luisa Santos said.  Disruptions across the UK and the EU are a direct consequence of “the kind of Brexit pursued by the UK government”, EU officials have said.

  Richard Szostak, European Commission director of UK Service of the Secretariat, said problems across the board were “not chosen by the European Union”.

  He told the European Parliament: “Brexit is a decision that the Commission has always regretted but respected.

  “We consider it to be a lose-lose situation and throughout the negotiation period, what we’ve always done is looked for ways to mitigate the impact of Brexit for the single market.”  Source (London Economic)

• Most UK Businesses are Restructuring in the Wake of Brexit Deal. 85 per cent of UK businesses have restructured in the wake of January’s Brexit deal, and the majority believe leaving the EU has negatively impacted operations, according to a new report**.

  Nearly half of UK businesses (44%) have had to redesign job roles and responsibilities post-Brexit, while 20% have laid off staff and 16% have required team members to relocate, according to the survey of UK executives. A further 6% indicated they have implemented a combination of the above, while only 15% say there have been no changes due to Brexit.  Source (The HR Director)

• Warning over growing post-Brexit meat sector labour shortage.  Britain’s meat sector has urged the government to rethink its Brexit policy on migrant workers as fears mount over a potentially damaging labour shortage.

  The sector is hugely reliant on eastern European workers, who make up more than 70% of staff in some processing factories. But tens of thousands are yet to begin making applications to remain in the UK under the EU settlement scheme, which closes on 30 June.  Source (Farmers Weekly)

• Brexit delivered £113bn blow to exports of UK services, research shows.

  Warning that crisis will ‘get worse as businesses see that there is not much going on in UK-EU negotiations’.   Brexit delivered a staggering £113bn blow to exports of UK services even before the sector was left out of the final trade agreement, new research says.

  Industries from IT and finance to business and professional services suffered huge pain from the point of the vote to leave the EU in 2016, experts at Aston University in Birmingham found.  Source (Independent)

• Covid and Brexit hits transportation and storage harder than any other sector, report reveals.  The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) Business Insights report has revealed the shock news that the transportation and storage industry has been hardest hit of all sectors by Covid and Brexit. The home delivery firm, ParcelHero, says that even hotels, food services, arts and entertainment have fared better.  Source (LogisticsManager)

• ‘I can’t recruit chefs’: Brexit and Covid plunge hospitality into crisis.  Sunny days should see the UK’s restaurants and pubs welcoming customers, but they face a staffing nightmare.  Source (Guardian)

• Lack of truck drivers to force supermarket prices up and lead to food shortages, experts warn.  The Road Haulage Association says the UK has lost 15,000 drivers since Brexit and that this will lead to a lack of deliveries of everyday products to supermarket shelves by the autumn. Source (I News)

• Brexit sees Irish buyers switch from UK to EU suppliers.

  Brexit’s impact on trade is laid bare in new Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, which shows a surge in imports to Ireland of goods from Europe and a sharp fall in goods bought from Britain.

  The change comes as Irish companies open up new supply chains to avoid tariffs and delivery delays on goods from the UK.  Source (Irish Times)

• Cabinet minister ridiculed for boast about saving permit-free music tours to tiny Liechtenstein.

  Agreement with alpine microstate near-identical to that offered by 27-nation EU – which UK rejected.

  “Delighted that our new trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will allow musicians, performers and support crews to tour easily there,” the culture secretary tweeted.  In fact, the small print of the text revealed that no final agreement has been reached with Iceland – and the deal with Norway may not kick in for another year.  The alpine microstate of Liechtenstein is only 160 square kilometres in size and has a population of just under 39,000 – about the same as Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Source (Independent)

• ‘So I have a feeling many companies are in for a rude awakening this month – the first round of supplementary customs declarations for companies importing from the EU’.  Dr Anna Jerzewska.  Source (Threadreader)

• Food exporters set to permanently cut ties with EU due to Brexit.

  Exporters are increasingly concerned that the second half of 2021 will see short-term Brexit disruption evolve into the permanent loss of certain EU markets. 

  Many exporters had responded to the Brexit challenge so far by putting “band aids on bullet wounds”, said Neil Hammill, commercial director at Cambridge Commodities. However, he said many were now weighing up whether to stop exporting the goods that encountered the worst frictions upon arrival in the EU. 

  These were predominantly animal origin products and organics, Hammill said. “I sense we’re going to end up putting them in the ‘too hard box’ over there and going: ‘OK, this is what’s left’, and it might be a business that’s 75% of the size.”  Source (The Grocer)

  Caveat emptor: Brooks England resumes shipments to UK online customers, but warns they will have to pay VAT and duties due to Brexit.

  ‘Made In England’ brand, which sends products to Italian parent for shipping, says shoppers may face extra costs.  Brooks England, which suspended sales to UK customers buying products direct from its website following the end of the Brexit transition period, has resumed shipments to shoppers here – but is warning them that they will be liable for VAT and potential customs charges now that the country has left the EU, despite the products being made in the West Midlands.  Source (Road CC)

• UK restaurant owners blame labour shortages as they cut services.

  Wages rise sharply as pandemic and Brexit leave venues without enough staff.  Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles.

  Restaurant owners across the UK have cut lunch and dinner services and raised wages, citing a “calamitous” shortage of labour prompted by Brexit and the aftereffects of the pandemic. Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Jnr said on Wednesday that he had been forced to stop serving lunch and reduce the menu from 12 choices per course to a tasting menu and three other options at his Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche. Source (Financial Times)

• Brexit delivered £113bn blow to exports of UK services, research shows.

  Warning that crisis will ‘get worse as businesses see that there is not much going on in UK-EU negotiations’

  Brexit delivered a staggering £113bn blow to exports of UK services even before the sector was left out of the final trade agreement, new research says.

  Industries from IT and finance to business and professional services suffered huge pain from the point of the vote to leave the EU in 2016, experts at Aston University in Birmingham found.  Source (Independent)

• Food prices set to soar thanks to Brexit-related red tape

  M&S expects to pay between £42 million and £47 million in additional costs this year, versus £16 million in 2020.  Source (London Economic)

• Firms expect to see fall in EU trade following Brexit.  Two in five firms that trade with the EU expect to see a fall in business compared to before the coronavirus crisis, a new study suggests.  A survey of more than 700 company directors also found that almost two-thirds were still finding it challenging to adjust to new post-Brexit trading arrangements.  Customs changes and non-tariff barriers were cited as the biggest obstacles by respondents to the Institute of Directors (IoD).  Source (New European)

• UK hospitality sector struggles for workers after EU citizens ‘went back home’.

  “I think the pandemic made some people realise that the ‘low skilled migrants’ are, in fact, amongst the key workers keeping our society together.”  The hospitality sector is experiencing a recruitment crisis, after many EU citizens left the UK.

  As 75 per cent of services are set to return from 17 May, an industry leader expressed anxiety over a lack of staff.  Kate Nicholls, chief executive of industry body UKHospitality, said many EU citizens left the UK permanently as a result of Brexit.  Source (London Economic)

• Covid and Brexit hits transportation and storage harder than any other sector, report reveals.

  The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) Business Insights report has revealed the shock news that the transportation and storage industry has been hardest hit of all sectors by Covid and Brexit. The home delivery firm, ParcelHero, says that even hotels, food services, arts and entertainment have fared better.

   ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks, who is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport, says the logistics and supply chain sector is a trusted barometer of the economy and that these results come as a shock.

  “The report – Business insights and impact on the UK economy – reveals that, between 17-30 May, 9.6% of ‘Transportation and storage’ category companies reported they had now closed permanently; 15% were still temporarily shuttered and just 75.4% had resumed trading,” said Jinks. “These trading status figures are grim reading and highlight the double whammy of the pandemic and Brexit on the transport and supply chain sector.  Source (Logistics Manager)

• Brexit bureaucracy creates British nightmare for Dutch boat captain.

  When Dutch boat captain and engineer Ernst-Jan de Groot applied to continue working in Britain after Brexit, he became ensnared in a bureaucratic nightmare because of an online glitch and says he is now likely to lose his job.  Source (UK News Yahoo)

• Serious threat to UK customs duty revenue as backlog of declarations grows.

  UK Customs is “looking down the barrel of a potential nightmare” as a delay on the requirement to submit declarations nears its end and the country still lacks sufficient resources to cover the backlog.

  “We’re in a situation where we have maybe millions of declarations due and we have insufficient brokers to get us out of the backlog,” a customs expert told The Loadstar.  Source (Loadstar)

• Going to Europe for work? It’s not as easy as you think.  Rules for business travel on the Continent have changed a lot since Brexit.

  When Covid restrictions lift and business travel in Europe resumes, companies are in for a shock. Planning to fly to Greece for a business meeting? Better triple-check you’re still welcome. Your host is now expected to pay a €500 fee to the Greek government for the privilege of hearing your sales pitch. Visiting Brussels for a conversation with European Union officials? Better be carrying a sworn statement from your employer setting out how you have complied with border rules. Stopping off in Sofia, the charming capital of Bulgaria? The interior ministry wants to be informed within three days of your arrival, by you directly or the hotel you are staying at.  Source (Times)

• Small UK firms struggle with post-Brexit hurdles to doing business in Europe.

  For Britain’s small and medium-sized businesses, trading with European nations used to be easy. After Brexit, that’s no longer the case with the emergence of obstacles that didn’t exist before.

  It was billed as the rebirth of British business — a chance to build a brighter commercial future, free of costly bureaucracy. But Brexit is proving far from profitable for many UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 

   Swamped by paperwork, taxes, and eye-watering additional costs, some are having to shutter their EU operations indefinitely. Others, unwilling to cut off European customers, are simply upping sticks, and moving to the Continent. Source (Deutsche Welle)

• Shopping bills set to rise this autumn, says BRC.

  Consumers could face more expensive shopping bills in the autumn as costs climb and Brexit red tape increases.

  Shops prices will be under pressure from high food, shipping, and commodity costs, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned.  Source (BBC)

• 77% of musicians expect earnings to be hit by new post-Brexit touring bureaucracy.

  As the music industry continues to put pressure on the UK government over the post-Brexit bureaucracy performers touring Europe are facing as COVID restrictions start to lift, the Musicians’ Union and Incorporated Society Of Musicians have revealed that 77% of artists expect their earnings to decrease as a result of the new visa, travel permit and carnet requirements they now face.

  A significant number of musicians are not expecting to tour Europe as a result, others are considering re-locating to countries within the EU, and a fifth are considering a career change.  Source (Complete Music Update)

• Perfectly good graded and packed fresh produce is being dumped.  The acute shortage of HGV drivers is now the direct cause of perfectly good, graded and packed fresh produce being dumped or rotting in cold stores, waiting for wheels to go under it. Supermarket shelves and restaurant plates are going empty – this is a crisis of national importance. In all my years in fresh produce I’ve never seen anything like this. Source (Nationwide Produce)

• Exodus of EU workers leaves UK construction industry facing shortages.  

  Source (Financial Times)

• British food and drink exports to EU fall by £2bn (almost half) in first quarter of 2021.

  Industry body says analysis of HMRC data shows structural rather than teething problems with Brexit

  British food and drink exports to the EU fell by £2bn in the first three months of 2021, with sales of dairy products plummeting by 90%, according to an analysis of HMRC data.

  Brexit checks, stockpiling and Covid have been blamed for much of the downturn, but the sector has said the figures show structural rather than teething problems with the UK’s departure from the EU.

  “The loss of £2bn of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer-term due to new trade barriers with the EU,” said Dominic Goudie, the head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF).  Source (Guardian)

• Meat sector warns of Brexit production squeeze.

  The UK faces shortages of British-produced meat as problems with recruitment continue, the industry has warned.

  Brexit and coronavirus have meant many EU workers have returned to their own countries, putting a squeeze on production.

  The poultry industry is reporting a 10% fall in the number of birds being slaughtered for meat in recent weeks.  Source (BBC)

• Number of EU citizens seeking work in UK falls 36% since Brexit, study shows.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed expose the impact on employers as they struggle to recruit staff

  The number of EU citizens searching for work in Britain has fallen by more than a third since Brexit, according to a study that exposes the impact on UK employers as they struggle to recruit staff.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed show searches by EU-based jobseekers for work in the UK were down by 36% in May from average levels in 2019. Low-paid jobs in hospitality, the care sector and warehouses recorded the biggest declines at 41%.

  In a report that suggests tougher post-Brexit immigration rules are having a distinct impact above and beyond the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, the sharp decline in interest among EU jobseekers was not replicated in other countries.  Source (Guardian)

• End of the line? How Brexit left Hull’s fishing industry facing extinction.

  The UK’s departure from the EU was supposed to reinvigorate our fishing industry. Instead, it has forced the country’s last distant-water trawler to sit idle.

  Snarled up in negotiations over fishing rights, which now have to be negotiated with each of the countries in whose waters it works, the UK’s last distant-water trawler sits idle, unable to work in its normal patch off the coasts of Norway, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.  Source (Guardian)

• UK SME wholesalers gazumped for haulage capacity as driver shortage bites.

  UK wholesalers have found themselves caught out by the country’s worsening driver shortage and are now seeing major retail chains gazumping them on securing capacity.

  MD of the National Buying Consortium David Lunt said his members, mostly wholesalers, were unaware of the severity of the problem until “the last few weeks” as suppliers sought to reassure their customers that capacity would not run dry.

  “We only realised how serious it was when a supplier, who normally fulfils hundreds of orders a day, informed us they could only cover three,” Mr Lunt told The Loadstar.  Source (Loadstar)

• Objection!  Why the EU opposes the UK’s plans for cross-channel litigation.

  Litigation in UK courts has become less attractive to EU businesses and nationals after Brexit, because it is less straightforward to enforce UK court judgments in the EU.

  Neither the Withdrawal Agreement nor the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) addressed judicial co-operation on civil and commercial matters. As a result of Brexit, the UK also left a number of international treaties dealing with judicial co-operation, which the EU had entered into on behalf of its member-states. These include the 2007 Lugano convention, an international treaty which clarifies where certain cross-border civil and commercial legal proceedings – such as disputes over contracts, insurance, employment law and family maintenance arrangements – should take place. For those matters, the convention ensures that court judgments from one participating country are recognised and can be enforced in any other country which is party to the convention. This outcome reduces costs and risks for parties to litigation, as it diminishes the scope for parallel court cases, disputes about which court should hear a case and difficulties in having judgments recognised and enforced. Source (Centre for European Reform)

• Number of EU citizens seeking work in UK falls 36% since Brexit, study shows.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed expose the impact on employers as they struggle to recruit staff.

  The number of EU citizens searching for work in Britain has fallen by more than a third since Brexit, according to a study that exposes the impact on UK employers as they struggle to recruit staff.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed show searches by EU-based jobseekers for work in the UK were down by 36% in May from average levels in 2019. Low-paid jobs in hospitality, the care sector and warehouses recorded the biggest declines at 41%.

  In a report that suggests tougher post-Brexit immigration rules are having a distinct impact above and beyond the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, the sharp decline in interest among EU jobseekers was not replicated in other countries.  Source (Guardian) 

• Checkatrade boss warns of shortage of skilled trade workers.

  A shortage of skilled trade workers has developed as European Union migrants leave the UK and demand for home improvements rises, the founder of Homeserve has said. Source (BBC)

• Exodus of EU workers leaves UK construction industry facing shortages.

  Source (Financial Times)

• Sports clothes company forced to relocate to Romania to allow business to ‘survive and grow’.  A sports clothing company has relocated to Romania to avoid the costs and bureaucracy associated with… Brexit. Source (Indy100)

• Tory MPs who hyped Brexit fishing benefits have abandoned us, fishermen say.

  National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations says European Research Group have gone ‘very quiet’ on issue.  Conservative MPs who hyped the potential benefits of Brexit for the fishing industry have been accused of quietly abandoning any mention of the issue after promised gains failed to materialise.  Source (Independent)

• Scottish customers face empty shelves and lack of fresh produce.

  PEOPLE across Scotland are noticing gaps in the fruit and vegetable displays at supermarkets and a decline in quality with some items past their best by the time they arrive.

  Pre-Brexit, fruit and veg were in the shops within five days of being harvested in Spain, France or Italy. Now the process takes up to two weeks, explained greengrocer James Welby of Tattie Shaw’s on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk.  Source (The National Scot)

• ‘I’m getting out’: Britain’s antiques dealers hit by Brexit.

  New regulations are forcing some dealers who relied on easy access to French markets to abandon the business.  Source (Financial Times)

• The Cost of Brexit: April 2021.

  We estimate that leaving the single market and customs union had reduced UK trade by 11 per cent in April 2021. That is on top of our previous finding of a 10 per cent hit to trade between the referendum and leaving the single market.  Source (Centre for European Reform)

• Number of EU citizens seeking work in UK falls 36% since Brexit, study shows.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed expose the impact on employers as they struggle to recruit staff

  The number of EU citizens searching for work in Britain has fallen by more than a third since Brexit, according to a study that exposes the impact on UK employers as they struggle to recruit staff.

  Figures from the jobs website Indeed show searches by EU-based jobseekers for work in the UK were down by 36% in May from average levels in 2019. Low-paid jobs in hospitality, the care sector and warehouses recorded the biggest declines at 41%.  Source (Guardian)

• Brexit continues to hit UK’s trade with EU, figures show. 

  One expert warned trade could get even worse, because the UK government is set to introduce full controls on imports.

  Brexit continues to depress trade with the European Union, figures have shown.

  Total imports and exports of goods between the UK and the EU have fallen by a quarter in the first four months of this year compared to 2019, The Independent has reported.

  It comes after, in January, exports fell by 38 per cent compared to 2020.

  One expert said that following new Brexit red tape trade is worse than before the pandemic.  Source (London Economic)

• British food and drink exports to EU fall by £2bn in first quarter of 2021.

  Industry body says analysis of HMRC data shows structural rather than teething problems with Brexit.

  British food and drink exports to the EU fell by £2bn in the first three months of 2021, with sales of dairy products plummeting by 90%, according to an analysis of HMRC data.

  Brexit checks, stockpiling and Covid have been blamed for much of the downturn, but the sector has said the figures show structural rather than teething problems with the UK’s departure from the EU.

  “The loss of £2bn of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer-term due to new trade barriers with the EU,” said Dominic Goudie, the head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF). Source (Guardian)

• Tonnes of food wasted each week due to driver shortage, Tesco tells ministers.

  Tesco has told ministers its suppliers are wasting nearly 50 tonnes of food a week because of the worsening HGV driver shortage, The Grocer has learned.

  In crisis talks with ministers today (16 June), the retailer said 48 tonnes of food across its supply chain in the last week alone had been binned, representing a huge spike compared with normal levels. 

  It came amid frantic talks this week between government and wholesale and logistics bosses over solutions to the driver shortage.

  Leading food redistribution charity FareShare told The Grocer this week it believed up to a third of the food that would otherwise be sent to its warehouses was not getting through. It said the amount equated to 800,000 meals a week for people suffering from food poverty.  Source (The Grocer)

• Brexit red tape stops Royal British Legion selling poppies in the EU online.

  Its decision to stop selling to customers in the EU coincides with exporters reporting large falls in sales due to new taxes and paperwork

  The Royal British Legion has been forced to abandon sales of poppies online in the European Union because of the extra costs and bureaucracy it faces following Brexit.  Source (INews)

• Food shortages now ‘inevitable’ due to labour crisis, industry warns.

  Chronic driver shortages have been compounded by staff shortfalls across low-paid sectors including harvesting, manufacturing and packaging.  Source (The Grocer)

• Food exports to Europe plunge after Brexit. The drop has reduced trade by around £2 billion. 

  The UK exported more food and drink to outside the EU than into it in the first few months after Brexit as exports to the bloc nosedived.

  Sales to non-EU countries made up 55% of all UK food and drink exports in the first three months of 2021 compared to less than 40% a year earlier, according to data from the Food and Drink Federation.

  However, this is not thanks to any major boom in exports to non-EU countries, which only rose by 0.3%, the group said.  Source (Evening Standard)

• Brexit ‘madness’ will wreck UK steel industry, Tories warned.

  Sector faces glut of cheap imports because of recommendation that EU protections should not be renewed

  The government was on Saturday night accused of dealing a hammer blow to the struggling British steel industry in the name of Brexit and free trade, as a fresh political row blew up over plans to allow more cheap foreign imports into the UK.  Source (Guardian)

• Horse racing hit by rules over exports

  Horse racing and breeding in the UK is being hit by rules over exports brought about by the exit from the European Union, industry figures have warned.

  The industry is worth £4.1bn annually to the UK economy and supports tens of thousands of jobs.

  The British Horseracing Authority has called for red tape, which a Suffolk stud farm said had mired the industry in paperwork, to be cut.  Source (BBC)

• Brexit realities are hitting home.

  Labour shortages and import barriers are now joined by certification challenges.  The  building industry has had to explain that the UK simply does not have the testing facilities to take over the work done in EU countries by the end of the year.

  Recruiters report that it is getting harder to hire people, with a steep increase in employers registering jobs and vacancies taking longer to fill. The Federation of Master Builders has identified shortages of bricklayers, carpenters and joiners in particular.  Source (Building)

• Burdened by red tape, Sussex businesses see no way out of Brexit nightmare.

  The fifth anniversary of the referendum vote is fast approaching (June 23) and there is little sign that anti-EU outrage in much of the UK media has decreased – rather the opposite. But below the sound and fury (currently focused on the Northern Ireland Protocol) it is easy to miss the steady drumbeat of bad news about the negative impact of Brexit on UK businesses – in particular on our small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

  The figures speak for themselves: in the first quarter of 2021 exports from the UK declined by 40%, imports by 29%.  Source (Sussex Bylines)

• EU prepares to cut amount of British TV and film shown post-Brexit.

  Exclusive: number of UK productions seen as ‘disproportionate’ and threat to Europe’s cultural diversity.

  The EU is preparing to act against the “disproportionate” amount of British television and film content shown in Europe in the wake of Brexit, in a blow to the UK entertainment industry and the country’s “soft power” abroad.  Source (Guardian)

• Bring in the army: Food group’s call to relieve UK lorry driver crisis.

  LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) – Premier Foods (PFD.L), one of Britain’s biggest food companies, has called on the government to consider using the army to distribute goods to help relieve a severe shortage of truck drivers.  Source (Reuters)

• Has it come to this? Agreeing with Baroness Thatcher (over Nissan)?

  Baroness Thatcher would have been appalled. She would want to know why a Tory government, yes a Tory government of self-proclaimed free marketeers, was writing out a blank cheque in the name of the UK taxpayer to give to a successful, profitable Nippon car company and a Chinese Communist Party-owned firm.  Source (West Country Bylines)

• UK-EU sausage war has de-escalated, but are you ready for the Brexit water fight?

  The UK has confirmed that major European mineral water brands like Evian and Perrier will lose their automatic right to export to Great Britain from January next year.

  The mineral water giants, which also includes San Pellegrino and Volvic, will now have to jump through a series of hoops to be allowed to ship their products to Great Britain, after the end of a post-Brexit transition period.  Source (City AM)

•  

• Brexit has driven 2,500 finance jobs and €170bn to France, says bank governor. Source (Guardian)
• €6 billion of EU share trading has moved away from the City and is lost for good. Source (Financial Times)
• The loss of passporting rights on January 1 has put the financial services sector (7% of the UK economy) at risk. Source (CNBC)
• MEPs vote to add Channel and British Virgin Islands to tax haven blacklist UK overseas territories such as Cayman Islands also may lose protection once afforded by UK’s EU membership. Source (Guardian)
• “Britain is now losing its very strong position in trading of European equities in London,” Source  (Independent)
• Chemical companies, facing costly new regulations and extra tariffs, are looking to the continent. It is a concern that is spread across Britain’s £33 billion (or about $45 billion) a year chemical industry. Source (New York Times)
• London Fund Managers See Post-EU Threat to $2 Trillion Business. Source  (Bloomberg)
• EU opens up to US clearing houses in blow to City of London. Source (CityA.M.)
• Brexit hit to London may top £9.5bn a year without EU financial services deal. Source (City AM)
• Amsterdam ousts London as Europe’s top share trading hub. Source (Financial Times)
• Amsterdam punctures City’s post-Brexit hopes. Source (Financial Times)
• Brexit trade deal to swipe £45bn from UK economy over two years, EU analysis finds. Source (Independent)
• Brexit cost will be four times greater for UK than EU, Brussels forecasts. Source (Guardian)
• Morgan Stanley Bases Global Capital Markets Head in Germany. Source (Bloomberg)
• Universities are forecast to lose an estimated £62.5 million per year in tuition fees as a result of Brexit. Source (Forbes)
• Derivatives trade worth billions flees London for New York post-Brexit. Source (Yahoo Finance)

• Britain’s fintech crown is under assault.  Entrepreneurs lament complacency in London just as other capitals are muscling in.  Source (Economist)

• Brexit: Ending the City’s Dominance of European Finance?  Source (Federal Trust)

• Brexit-backing Sunderland says it is not receiving same level of funding outside EU.  Source (London Economic)

• Post-Brexit Cornwall to receive only 5% of what it needs to replace EU funding.  Source (The New European)

• BoE governor warns EU over derivatives clearing power grab.  Bank of England expects the City of London to lose £25 trillion to £89 trillion in European derivatives trading business over the next year.  Source (Financial Times)

• City firms revealed in the final months of 2020 that they planned to shift nearly £100bn in assets to the EU, taking the total value of assets lost to the bloc since the Brexit vote to £1.3 trillion, according to a new survey.  Source (The Guardian)

• Brexit heralds a bleak future for the City of London.  With the Brexit trade deal barely mentioning financial services, the flight of the United Kingdom’s financial industry to the European Union will be difficult to avoid. Source (LSE)

• Irish assets leave London in €100bn post-Brexit switch.  Transfer to Brussels of securities deposits follows shift of share trading away from UK.  Source (Irish Times)

• Dublin is first choice for Brexit finance firm relocations to EU..  Ireland’s capital is attracting more UK firms than Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Paris, or other centres in mainland Europe.  Source (Irish Examiner)

• Bank of England clamps down on Brexit-driven EU relocations.  “Being told in advance of banks’ plans is one thing, but requiring regulatory approval first is quite another,” said one senior adviser to a US bank in London.  Source (Financial Times) 

• Forget equivalence, the City of London needs a post-Brexit plan.  Latest ‘deal’ between EU and UK offers little in the way of progress.  The latest “deal” between the UK and the EU was meant to clear a path to a new way of operating for the City of London.  In reality, it feels more like the end of the road.  Source (Financial Times)

• JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon warns of Brexit hit to London amid uncertainty over financial services.  Higher costs will make for “few winners” in UK’s departure from EU.  The chief executive of the world’s biggest bank, JPMorgan, today declared Brexit “cannot be positive” for the UK in the short term and will lead to added costs for customers across the UK and Europe.  Source (Standard)

• Brexit: JPMorgan may one day move all European business out of London, says bank boss.  Leaving the EU ‘cannot possibly be good for the United Kingdom’s GDP’, says investment bank boss.  Source (Independent)

• Bankers talk of being sold out as London waits for its own Brexit deal with Brussels.  Bankers who have spoken to CNBC feel the industry has continually been neglected throughout Brexit talks.  Financial services make up 7% of the U.K.’s total output, and 10% of government tax receipts, but the industry was not a part of the “zero tariff-zero quota deal” concluded on Dec. 24.  Source (CNBC)

• Bank of England clamps down on Brexit-driven EU relocations.  Source (Financial Times)

• Dublin is first choice for Brexit finance firm relocations to EU.  Ireland’s capital is attracting more UK firms than Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Paris, or other centres in mainland Europe.  Source (Irish Examiner)

• City of London Brexit hit worse than expected, says study.  Over 400 financial firms in Britain have shifted activities, staff and a combined trillion pounds ($1.4 trillion) in assets to hubs in the European Union due to Brexit, with more pain to come, a study from New Financial think tank said on Friday.

  “We think it is an underestimate and we expect the numbers to increase over time: we are only at the end of the beginning of Brexit,” the study said.  Source (Reuters)

• Mastercard to increase fees for UK purchases from EU.  Departure from single market spells end for Brussels-mandated cap on transaction levies.  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.  Source (Financial Times)

• Bankers quit London as Brexit relocations to EU step up.  Investment banks are shifting more rainmakers out of London to financial centres across the European Union, accelerating the pace of moves after the pandemic and uncertainty over Britain’s access to the bloc slowed relocations.

  Morgan Stanley, Barclays and Goldman Sachs are among those moving senior bankers, according to sources at the lenders, as European regulators push banks to better staff their EU offices and travel restrictions ease. Local hiring has also increased.  Source (Reuters)

• Brexit hit: City of London suffers £2.3 trillion derivatives loss in a single month.  The City of London suffered a loss of £2.3 trillion in a single month in its lucrative derivatives trading market, with Wall Street trading platforms the ones that benefitted.

  U.S. swap-execution facilities pulled in more trades across euros, pounds and dollars in March while London experienced an exodus compared to last July, while venues in the European Union also gained, according to an estimate by Deloitte and IHS Markit, reported by Bloomberg today.  Source (City AM)

• JPMorgan to Move Another $200 Billion in Assets on Brexit.  With any hope of unhindered access to EU markets long gone, JPMorgan joins Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Standard Chartered as it transfers another $200 billion to Frankfurt and warns they could ultimately shift all bankers serving EU clients out of London.  Source (Bloomberg)

• Post-Brexit interchange fee plan prompts outcry from U.K. merchants.  Visa and Mastercard’s proposal to raise scheme fees and U.K. interchange rates on cross-border transactions post-Brexit has increased pressure on regulators to cap them, and on merchants to seek alternatives.

  Before Brexit, U.K. merchants benefited from a European Commission-enforced cap on credit and debit card interchange fees for all transactions made between the U.K. and the EU. This no longer applies.  Source (PaymentsSource)

• Deutsche accelerates overhaul of corporate bank after Brexit. German lender relocating about 100 staff from London to cities within the EU and Asia.

  “Deutsche Bank is relocating 100 bankers from London to offices in the EU and Asia as Germany’s largest lender accelerates a restructuring of its corporate bank following Brexit.”  Source (Financial Times)

• Brexit: ECB to crack down on ‘desk mapping’ in London to drive more bankers and capital to the EU.  The European Central Bank is ramping up efforts to push more management and capital out of the City and Canary Wharf, into the EU.

  The central banking authority plans to scrutinise and crack down on so-called ‘desk mapping’ – or ‘back-to-back booking’ – to determine whether banks’ key staff, capital and book trades used by EU-based clients are not based outside the bloc.

  The bank believes that currently, too many bank rely too heavily on their London units while serving clients across the EU, thereby escaping regulatory scrutiny and oversight, according to a Bloomberg report, citing anonymous sources to the ECB.  Source (City AM)

• Business secretary confirms post-Brexit review of UK workers’ rights. Source (Guardian) Remember “To restore Britain’s competitiveness we must begin by deregulating the labour market. Political objections must be overridden. It is too difficult to hire and fire and too expensive to take on new employees. It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable while output and employment are clearly cyclical.” Liam Fox 2012)
• Review of UK workers’ rights post-Brexit is axed in sudden U-turn. Source (Guardian)

• Brexit: UK ‘risks falling behind’ EU on workers’ rights.  The UK is at a “real risk” of falling behind the EU when it comes to workers’ rights, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) says.  The union body said the EU had “various initiatives” in the pipeline which would improve standards once they became law.  But it said the UK had no similar legislation on the way.  Source (BBC)

• Brexit leaves UK protections for Zero Hours workers lagging behind EU.  One year after Brexit, it looks like UK zero hours workers could be worse off than their counterparts in the European Union (EU).  Source (ZeroHoursJustice)

• Government to let farmers use bee-killing pesticide banned in EU. Source (Independent)

• ‘Bee-killing’ pesticide now will not be used on UK sugar beet fields.  Source (The Guardian)

• UK ministers gain power to allow lower-standard food imports. Source  (Guardian)
• Green Brexit didn’t happen, says environmental coalition.  Source (BBC)
• EU Says A Post-Brexit Shellfish Export Ban Is Indefinite, After Government Claimed It Was Only Temporary. Source (Politics Home)
• British beekeeper told his order of 15 million baby Italian bees would be destroyed if he tried to import them. Source  (Independent)
• Brexit threatens heritage and organic seed supply. Source (Wicked Leeks)
• Australia deal threatens British farming. Source  (WestEnglandBylines)
• More than 100,000 British pigs stranded by Brexit border problems. Source (Financial Times)
• Iconic Somerset cider business hit by Johnson’s trade deal. “Brexit has caused a stumbling block that a family-run business like ours cannot simply overcome.”  Source  (West Country Bylines)
• EU sinks UK hopes of overturning shellfish ban. Source (Financial Times)
• Meat processors trade in EU to bypass Brexit export woes. Source (FoodManufacture)
• 53 Tons of Rotting Pork and Other Brexit Nightmares. Source (New York Times)
• “Brexit is taking us back to 1995 work practices” Source (Flanders News)

• Brexit forces world’s largest daffodil farm to let flowers rot in fields.  Source (Cornwall Live)

• Our countryside faces huge challenges post-Brexit, and the Welsh Government’s plan only scratches the surface.  Source (Nation.Cymru)

• Sausages and other chilled meats produced in Great Britain are set to be banned in Northern Ireland from July 1.  Source (London Economic)

• Brexit forces Northern Ireland buyers to cancel orders for 100,000 trees.  Source (Guardian)

• A zoo says its conservation programme has stalled due to a lack of post-Brexit paperwork.  Source (BBC)

• UK pet food industry hurt by Brexit checks and red tape.  Source (Financial Times) 

• Brexit bureaucracy and disruption costs Scottish salmon farmers £11 million.  Source (Scottish Salmon)

• Brexit has robbed Britain of the mechanism to deliver on climate change.  Source (The New European)

• Public trust ‘eroded’ by ministers flirting with post-Brexit cuts to food and animal welfare standards, report warns.  Source (Independent)

• This is the paperwork required to send one order to the EU now. Previously zero. £100k / year of Veterinary inspection fees now, previously £0. Very annoying/ costly for an established business like us, crippling for a small company! Emailed@GregHands, no response…  Source (Twitter)

• Organic food hit by UK’s ‘1970s’ Brexit red tape. Issues faced by exporters threaten to increase food prices and reduce Brits’ food choice.  Source (Politico.eu)

• Brexit farm workers scheme found fueling risk of slavery in UK.  Source (Reuters)

• Endangered species are facing a new threat. Conservation programmes stopped by new Brexit export regulations.  Twycross Zoo in Leicester is due to export its critically-endangered Amur leopard for conservation. But the forms they used before the UK left the EU’s single market no longer exist.  Source (Best for Britain) 

• Nematodes become latest casualty of post-Brexit trade glitches.  Source (Financial Times)

• Brexit: Plant and animal checks to be ‘permanent barrier’ to trade without new deal, study warns.  EU said agreement on common rules ‘on the table’ – but UK would probably have to drop prized right to diverge.  Source (Independent)

• Green Brexit didn’t happen, says environmental coalition.  The group says protections for climate, farming, fisheries and water quality are similar to 2016; but for chemicals, nature, air quality and waste are weaker. The coalition, which includes The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and ClientEarth, says:

  • New institutions – including the post-Brexit watchdog the Office for Environmental Protection – will be weaker than those they are replacing
  • Crucial environmental principles are being watered down.
  • There’s been a lack of coordination with the EU on mutually beneficial issues, from carbon pricing to wildlife protection
  • The UK has left the EU’s gold standard chemical regulation system – and created a domestic version with fewer staff, less funding and restricted access to existing data.  Source (BBC)
• Brexit threatens heritage and organic seed supply.  Demand for local food and a supercharged interest in gardening has combined with Brexit bureaucracy to create delays and a growing shortage of heritage and organic seed.

The shortage has further long-term potential to reduce the amount of plant biodiversity growing in the UK, thanks to renationalising a previously pan-European seed list without transferring all existing certified seeds.  Source (WickedLeeks)

• Farmers Are Facing Ruin Thanks to Brexit – YouTube video

• UK signs Australia free trade deal despite farmer concerns.

  Responding to news of a deal, Glyn Roberts, president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales said: “We have grave concerns that we could end up with a deal that’s catastrophic for animal welfare, the environment, our family farms and our food security – and that it will be set in stone.”  

  Mr Roberts said MPs must take warnings extremely seriously about the implications of a trade deal that sets the UK on a permanent legally-binding course to open us up to food produced to lower environmental and welfare standards, and undermines our food security and the viability of our family farms.  Source (Farmers Weekly)

• ‘Irresponsible’ Australia trade deal will bring ruin for UK farmers, critics warn.

  Scottish National party says tariff-free imports of hormone-treated beef ‘would represent a bitter betrayal of rural communities’

  Farming unions said that proposals for a zero-tariff and zero-quota trade deal would drive farmers out of business, while green groups said allowing Australian hormone-treated beef would breach the Conservatives’ manifesto commitments.  Source (Guardian)

• Wind turbine clash adds to UK-EU post-Brexit tensions.

  Exclusive: Brussels is concerned that British government is favouring domestic firms, in breach of trade deal

  A new front has opened up in the post-Brexit tensions between Boris Johnson and the EU over Brussels’ concerns that the British wind turbine industry is being favoured for government contracts worth billions of pounds.

  With the support of the governments of France and Spain, the European Commission has privately warned UK officials that the government’s procurement policy could be in breach of the trade deal signed on Christmas Eve.  Source (Guardian)

• Brexit Trade Deals Devastate UK Farmers.

  “We’ve been sold down the river.”  Farmers across the UK are warning that the trade deals being hailed as a victory by Brexiteers will decimate their industry and our food quality. 

  They say Boris Johnson has thrown them under the bus.

  Source   Byline TV

• UK post-Brexit green watchdog will be weaker than EU predecessor, warns law body

  New agency will lack legal powers and independence from ministerial interference, analysis finds.  The UK’s new green watchdog will be almost powerless to impose penalties on public authorities that commit environmental damage and will lack independence from ministerial interference, a top law body has warned.  Source (Financial Times)

• British public are being ‘blindfolded’ on post-Brexit trade deals, farmers warn.

  “I don’t think they kept their promises before Brexit, they promised things to all men. It’s a huge betrayal,” one farmer told TLE.  

  Farmers across the country have hit out at the government’s ongoing trade deals discussions.

  The government announced a “historic” free trade deal with Australia yesterday which they said will “eliminate tariffs on all UK goods”.

  But farmers think the deal is “opening the floodgates” for more similar deals, which they say will be bad for them as well as for consumers.  Source (London Economic)

• End of the line? How Brexit left Hull’s fishing industry facing extinction.

  The UK’s departure from the EU was supposed to reinvigorate our fishing industry. Instead, it has forced the country’s last distant-water trawler to sit idle.

  Source (Guardian)

• Somerset cheese factory says it has a staff shortage due to Brexit.

  A Somerset cheese factory has said it is facing a staff shortage it believes is due to Brexit.

  Norseland, supplier of speciality and blended cheeses including Jarlsberg, Mexicana, Ilchester and Applewood, says it has been hit with a labour shortage at its factory in Ilchester.

  The firm says the problems come after many of its workers, who were from European Union countries, decided to return home after the UK left the EU.  Source (Somerset Live)

• UK meat industry cuts production as Brexit labour shortages bite.

  Industry ‘heading for brick wall’ and calls on government to relax immigration rules.  

  Labour shortages are causing the UK meat industry to cut production and warn that it will soon be unable to meet orders unless the government relaxes post-Brexit immigration rules.  The British Poultry Council (BPC) said throughput in the industry — which usually processes some 20m birds each week — had fallen by 10 per cent since Easter, because of the shortages of workers across farming and processing. 

  Source (Financial Times)

• Wind turbine clash adds to UK-EU post-Brexit tensions.

  Exclusive: Brussels is concerned that British government is favouring domestic firms, in breach of trade deal

  A new front has opened up in the post-Brexit tensions between Boris Johnson and the EU over Brussels’ concerns that the British wind turbine industry is being favoured for government contracts worth billions of pounds.

  With the support of the governments of France and Spain, the European Commission has privately warned UK officials that the government’s procurement policy could be in breach of the trade deal signed on Christmas Eve.  Source (Guardian)

• Fruit farming on ‘brink of collapse’ as Brexit causes shortage of pickers.

  Farmers have been left ‘on the brink’ after Brexit put a ‘massive hole’ in the numbers of fruit pickers coming to the UK in the summer months, it has been claimed.

  Applications for seasonal work at one Kent-based company are down 90% in the last two years and there are fears for the future.  Source (Metro)

• Post-Brexit labour shortages deal blow to UK cannabis production.

  Pilot scheme to admit seasonal overseas workers does not cover crops grown for medicinal use.

  The company that owns the UK’s biggest cannabis production site for use in pharmaceuticals has called for changes to immigration policy following labour shortages after it was excluded from a visa scheme for farm workers.  Source (Financial Times)

• Young people are more anxious about Brexit than catching Covid-19, study finds. Source (New European)
• Brexit has delivered the ‘biggest loss of rights in history’, according to two legal experts. Source (BestForBritain & Le Monde

•  

• More costs, paperwork, delays and limits on travel to the EU. Source (Guardian)
• 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% in alcohol – plus up to 200 cigarettes. Source (Guardian)
• From time-consuming paperwork to new training, vets count cost of scrapping pet passports. Source (INews)

• From tariffs to visas: here’s what’s in the Brexit deal

  There is no mutual recognition of professional qualifications in the deal, causing complications for those such as doctors, accountants and architects. Source (Guardian)
• Only 90 days in a 180 day period are allowed (from 2022 you will need to pay €7 to visit) so if you want to stay in Europe longer you will need to apply for a long stay visa.  France-Visas  The official visa website for France
• Reduction of free healthcare. Although the EHIC (soon to be GHIC) card will cover you for medical emergencies the long stay visa requires repatriation cover as well. (Cheapest Schengen visa insurance found by us to date:  https://www.axa-schengen.com/en)   Source (BritishInEurope.org)
• Possible return of roaming charges
• French bank lays out tougher mortgage requirements for Brits buying second homes. Source  (TheLocalFrance)
• EU citizens offered financial incentives to leave UK. Source (Guardian)
• UK au pairs under threat from new immigration rules on which 45,000 working families depend. Source (Financial Times)

• British riders may be unable to race in Europe under new Brexit rules. “The UK has a huge number of sporting professionals, young an

• d training athletes that travel year-round to Europe to train and compete.”  Source (Road CC)

• UK airlines warn of job losses as they lose business to Brexit.  Carriers say they are severely disadvantaged when applying for flight permits under new rules.  Source (Guardian)

• Britain’s au pair system ‘killed’ by Brexit.  Source (Euractiv)

• Cost of post-Brexit travel for horses to EU up 300%: call for evidence to improve situation.  The cost of travelling horses abroad by ferry has increased by around 318% since the end of the Brexit transition period.  Source (Horse and Hound)

• As homeowners in Spain, we worry that Brexit has ruined the expat reputation.  Source (Metro)

• Here in Italy, there are now many British nationals, often long term residents, whose lives have suddenly been brought to an abrupt stop.  Source (Repubblica Italy)

• Biggest Foreign-Worker Exodus Since WWII Adds to Britain’s Woes.  Source (Bloomberg)

• Travel jobs at risk because of Brexit, say trade groups.  An estimated 20,000 Britons employed in the UK’s “outbound” travel industry are affected, according to ABTA – but there are more in UK reliant on sales.  Source (Financial Times)

• 900,000 UK boaters set to be hit by post-Brexit travel rules, Royal Yachting Association survey finds.  Source (Sail World)

• Pozzi rues Brexit rules that threaten Olympic hopes as Markovc takes gold.  Britain’s world champion hurdler Andrew Pozzi fears his Olympic ambitions are under threat because of new Brexit rules that could force him to quit his training base in Italy.  Source (The Guardian)

• Top Siberian husky team forced to stop competing because of Brexit.  Source (Daily Record)

• The Spanish dream is over as Brits leave Spain to avoid being deported as illegal immigrants.  Source (Global 247 News)

• Britons in France could lose driving licences due to post-Brexit impasse. Thousands face not having a valid permit after lack of deal between UK and France and flood of applications.  Source (Guardian)

• Thousands of EU children face ‘cliff edge’ as still without post-Brexit status three months before deadline. Three-quarters of EU nationals in local authority care yet to be granted settled status, figures show.  Source (Independent)

• Brexit forces bitter British couples to flee EU holiday homes.  Thousands will wake up on Thursday as illegal aliens as a post-Brexit limit on time spent in the EU kicks in.  Source (London Economic)

• Brexit has left domestic abuse victims in limbo.  “Abuse victims who relocate to the EU or even go there on holiday will not be safeguarded by any court order issued in the UK.”   This must be one of the worse oversights in this thin-as-gruel Brexit deal.  Source (The Times)

• Brit expats and homeowners ‘screwed over’ by Brexit as retirement dreams dashed

  Hard-working Brits who dreamed of a retirement dividing their lives between the UK and Europe say their plans are in ruins – with one pensioner forced to move home after 20 years in Spain.  One of the conditions that had to be met to gain residency was an income of £21,000 a year – ruling out thousands of UK pensioners living in Spain.  Source (Mirror)

• Ex-Brexit Party MEP mocked for moaning that EU ‘restricted free movement’.  Lance Forman claimed he “believed in free movement”, and called the EU “crazy” for “restricting” it.  Source (London Economic)

• Brexit ‘to cost us €150,000 more in tax to sell our second home’.    Stricter non-EU rules are being applied post-Brexit concerning capital gains on property sales in France.  Source (Connexion France)

• Pets after Brexit: From time-consuming paperwork to new training, vets count cost of scrapping pet passports.  Vets will be tasked with complex paperwork, training and time constraints to roll out the post-Brexit alternative to pet passports – with some surgeries saying the complexity of the process means they will scrap providing the documentation altogether.  Source (i News)

• Brexit: What does it mean for security in the UK?  Source  (BBC)
• Brexit leaves UK and EU diminished in fight against international crime. Source (Financial Times)

• Nordic and European security issues left unanswered because of Brexit.  Source (Euractiv)

• At least 10 EU countries will not extradite criminals to UK because of Brexit.  Source (Independent)

• Policing capabilities lessened after Brexit.  Source (UKandEU)

• Britain will lose significant access to EU security data due to Brexit deal.  The greatest impact on our security comes from losing access to the Schengen information System, for swapping alerts on the movement of criminals and missing persons.  Source (Politics Home)

• Trust between the EU and the UK is in short supply. This poses risks to British-European security relations.  Source (LSE)

• Brexit: UK lost ‘significant’ access to EU policing data under deal, report warns.

  When the UK left the EU it lost automatic access to EU databases with information on criminal records, fingerprints and wanted persons.  Under a deal struck between the two sides at the end of last year, the UK secured access to certain sets of information, for example air passenger data.  Source (BBC)

• Policing capabilities lessened after Brexit.  Although the final Brexit deal agreed between the UK and the EU contained a mutual commitment to future security and law enforcement cooperation, there is no doubt that the settlement resulted in an overall lessening of policing capability.  Source (UKandEU)

• Loss of access to EU policing data post-Brexit concerning, Lords Committee finds.  Source (Committees Parliament)

• Lords Raise ‘Grave Concerns’ about Brexit’s Impact on Family Law, Crime and Justice.  UK law enforcement can no longer immediately access real-time data about persons and objects of interest, including wanted and missing persons.  Source (Byline Times)

• The challenges of law enforcement and security after Brexit.  The UK was a leader in developing the European arrest warrant (EAW), the Europol and Eurojust agencies, and some of the shared databases and alerting systems that underpinned cooperation on justice and security among EU member states.  Although use of these systems became an integral part of keeping British citizens safe, very little of it was covered in the political declaration.  Source (Yorkshire Bylines)

• Building a Super Life Science Industry will be vital for UK to navigate the challenges of Brexit. Along with the EMA’s departure went 900 jobs undertaken by highly qualified personnel and 40,000 business visits.  Source  (LondonEconomic)
• Mother fears son could die as Brexit stops medical cannabis supply. Source (Guardian)
• Tories vote down protections for NHS in trade deals. The full list of MPs who voted the amendment down (including John Glen)  Source  (LondonEconomic)
• Brexit Border Friction Led to “Two Or Three Hundred Consignments” Of Cancer Drugs Being Destroyed. Source  (Politics Home)
• ‘My disabled child has no wheelchair due to Brexit red tape,’ Source  (LBC)

• Six year old’s vital medication runs out because of Brexit changes.  Source (ITV)

• The EU healthcare option that ended with Brexit.  An EU healthcare option, no longer available in the UK due to Brexit, was growing in popularity on both sides of the Irish border.  Source (BBC)

• Science cuts could see experts leave UK, warns Nobel laureate.  “Catastrophic” cuts to the UK’s science budget could result in top scientists leaving the country, a Nobel laureate has warned.

  Sir Paul Nurse also said science was crucial to the UK’s reputation overseas and for dealing with climate change.

  Scientists are concerned the UK’s domestic science budget will have to foot a bill that has arisen as part of the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU.

  The UK science funding body might have to absorb a cost of £2bn a year.  Source (BBC)

• Brexit sees applications from EU students to University of Portsmouth fall by more than half.  Source (The Portsmouth News)

• Erasmus Plus was open to everyone: have these opportunities gone for good?

  The government has rejected the EU’s offer to keep the UK in the Erasmus Plus education schemes. And in so doing, has slammed the door shut on educational and training opportunities that we’d all taken for granted. By stopping us being in the Erasmus programme, the government has ended an age of opportunity that was available to everyone, no matter what their background. Johnson has used Brexit to crush that once and for all.  Source (Yorkshire Bylines)

• Startling fall in EU applications to study in the UK.  Applications from the United Kingdom’s number one overseas student market (the countries making up the European Union,) have plummeted by 40% for undergraduate courses starting in 2021-22, but it is Brexit and not COVID-19 that is to blame for the fall.  Source (University World News)

• Adieu Erasmus, bonjour Turing? A French perspective.  Of all the decisions made by Boris Johnson and his government as they implemented their Brexit policies, this is possibly the one that left the French press most flabbergasted.  Source (West Country Bylines)

• Losing Erasmus: a tragic and costly mistake.  One of the biggest losses of Brexit, together with losing freedom of movement, is the end of the Erasmus project, which has enabled 9 million young people since 1987, including 15,000 British students per year, to experience studying or working in another European country.  Source (Sussex Bylines)

• World Talent Ranking: UAE climbs six places but Brexit impairs UK score

  Listing records country’s ability to train and recruit top professionals.  Researchers said uncertainties over Brexit appeared to have damaged the UK’s competitiveness after it came 23rd in the table, down seven places from 2016 when it voted to leave the EU.  Source (The National News)

• As an art student at London College of Contemporary Arts (LCCA), I aim to create a public art project that can speak to as many people as possible through different media. Because I’m Italian my fees have gone up from £9,000 to £23,000 per year.  Source (West England Bylines)

• CEE students look elsewhere as Brexit makes the UK too expensive.

  European Union students starting a degree in the UK this year will be expected to pay high fees, and as a direct result applications from the EU have fallen by 40 per cent. What does this mean for the exchange of students between the UK and emerging Europe?  Source (Emerging-Europe)

• Promises to protect scientific and medical research after Brexit hit by £14bn funding gap, MPs warn.

  UK legally agreed to pay £15bn to stay in Horizon Europe project – but only £1bn has been found

  Pledges to protect UK involvement in vital scientific and medical research after Brexit are threatened by a £14bn funding gap, MPs are warning.

  Boris Johnson opted to stay in the flagship £80bn Horizon Europe programme – which pools talent and ideas to achieve breakthroughs – even as his trade deal meant leaving other projects.  Source (Independent)

• From tariffs to visas: here’s what’s in the Brexit deal. Source (Guardian)

• Britain loses eTwinning as well as Erasmus+.  Source (West England Bylines)
• New ‘Erasmus’ scheme will not pay tuition or travel costs and living allowance slashed.  Fresh accusations that ministers are crushing hopes of students who want to live, study and travel abroad….Boris Johnson promised last year that there was “no threat” to the hugely-popular Erasmus programme.  Source (Independent)
• Why the Turing scheme is no replacement for Erasmus.  Source (Tes)
• Fears language degrees at risk as Erasmus replacement focuses on UK trade agenda.  Source (Guardian)
• Thousands of UK language students left in limbo as Brexit hits travel plans.  Universities say they have received inadequate guidance on red tape and costs for academic years abroad.  Source (Guardian)

• Promises to protect scientific and medical research after Brexit hit by £14bn funding gap, MPs warn.

  UK legally agreed to pay £15bn to stay in Horizon Europe project – but only £1bn has been found.

  Pledges to protect UK involvement in vital scientific and medical research after Brexit are threatened by a £14bn funding gap, MPs are warning.

  Boris Johnson opted to stay in the flagship £80bn Horizon Europe programme – which pools talent and ideas to achieve breakthroughs – even as his trade deal meant leaving other projects.  Source (Independent)

• UK school skiing trips to EU could be wiped out by Brexit visa rules

  Extra cost of permission for British temporary staff to work in resorts likely to be prohibitive for firms.

  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 as the music and theatre sectors.

  Just like rock bands and music artists, instructors who work on the slopes of France, Italy or elsewhere in the EU are now required to have visas if they work in Europe, even if it is for just one week at a time.  Source (Guardian)

• Tony Blair and John Major warn a Brexit could threaten peace process during visit to Derry.  9 June 2016.  Source (Irish News) 
• Villiers says Brexit would not undermine peace process. Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers has condemned as “highly irresponsible” claims that a British exit from the European Union could undermine the peace process in the North.  June 2016.   Source (Irish Times)

• The EU was crucial to securing peace in Ireland. This plan puts it in peril. “The Good Friday Agreement was born of the most painstaking talks I ever took part in. Now our prime minister threatens to rip it apart.” Tony Blair October 2019.   Source (Guardian)

• ‘There will be no border in the Irish Sea’, insists Lewis.  Secretary ‘committed’ to plans addressing the legacy of violence.  The new Northern Ireland Secretary has insisted there will be no border between Northern Ireland and Britain.  February 2020.   Source (Independent.ie)

• Brexit is the catalyst for rioting in Northern Ireland.  With marching season approaching, it is a dangerous time in the province.  Source (Economist)
• Northern Ireland ‘playing with matches’ amid Brexit trade deal tensions.  Brexit has added fuel to the fire as Northern Ireland is hit by fresh unrest.  Source (Politico)
• Northern Ireland riots signal dark new chapter for Brexit.  Source (Yahoo)
• Irish Sea border sees hundreds of items disappear from corner shops.  Source  (Newsletter, Belfast)
• Brexit: the view from Northern Ireland.  Northern Ireland is on the periphery of both the EU and the UK, and this is why it is right at the nexus of the new UK-EU relationship. It is why the withdrawal negotiations ended up concentrating so intensely on ‘the Irish question’. And it’s why Brexit-related stories continue so often to be centred on this small place, with accompanying tales of UK-EU tensions.  Professor Kay Hayward.  Source (Yorkshire Bylines)
• 100 days of Brexit: Countdown to crisis in Northern Ireland as peace goes up in flames.  Timeline from the Troubles to Peace and back again, thanks to Brexit.   Source (West Country Bylines)
• The consequences of Boris Johnson’s careless Brexit are playing out in Belfast.  This week’s violence is an ominous sign that leaving the EU took a wrecking ball to the Good Friday agreement.  Source (Guardian)
• Peace in Northern Ireland is in danger – Johnson’s lies and inaction offer no help.  Jonathan Powell.  The region has been used as a pawn since the Brexit vote. All sides must now start talking to avoid an escalation of violence and division.   Source (Guardian)

• Brexit ignites the debate about a united Ireland. Campaigners say Northern Ireland is edging towards holding a referendum on its future.   Source (Financial Times)

• Dear Boris Johnson, There is no better Brexit when it comes to the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland. As you still seem bamboozled by all this Paddywackery here’s a few pointers for your next stab in the dark.  Source (Thread Reader – Patrick Kielty)

• Brexit forces Northern Ireland buyers to cancel orders for 100,000 trees.  Exclusive: Ban on plants being moved across Irish Sea is major setback for tree-planting programmes in region.  Source (Guardian)

• Johnson’s carelessness over Northern Ireland is an undeniable factor in the current violence.  The prime minister consistently overlooked the Irish border issue during Brexit negotiations. The riots in Belfast are inextricably bound up with his irresponsibility.  Source (Prospect Magazine)

• Brexit: the view from Northern Ireland.  Source (Yorkshire Bylines)

• Northern Ireland ‘playing with matches’ amid Brexit trade deal tensions.  Brexit has added fuel to the fire as Northern Ireland is hit by fresh unrest.  Source (politico.eu)

• The totality of UK-Irish relations is at risk because of Brexit.  The European Union was a crucial element of the totality of UK-Irish relationships that would allow for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.  Source (Blogs LSE)

• Brexit to hit supplies of cancer, epilepsy and diabetes medicines to Northern Ireland, government warned.  Firms already starting to withdraw vital drugs because of costly new red tape, says industry group.  Source (Independent)

• NI to lose £59m in economic funding following Brexit.

  Brexit has resulted in a projected 85% decrease in investment for Northern Ireland under a new scheme set to replace EU funds for economic development, it has emerged.

  The UK Government has set up the Community Renewal Fund to replace the EU Structural Fund scheme.

  The annual allocation for NI via the new fund was £11m in the 2020/21, compared to the £70m the region would have received from the EU fund. It is estimated the same amounts lost will be similar this financial year.  Source (Belfast Telegraph)

• Brexit: UK government knew NI Protocol ‘was a bad deal’.

  Theresa May’s former chief of staff is “pretty sure it’s not true” that the government underestimated the impact of the NI Protocol when it agreed to it.

  But Lord Barwell said Boris Johnson’s government “knew it was a bad deal”.

  They “agreed it to get Brexit done”, he argued.  Source (BBC)

• NI to lose £59m in economic funding following Brexit.

  Brexit has resulted in a projected 85% decrease in investment for Northern Ireland under a new scheme set to replace EU funds for economic development, it has emerged.

  The UK Government has set up the Community Renewal Fund to replace the EU Structural Fund scheme.

  The annual allocation for NI via the new fund was £11m in the 2020/21, compared to the £70m the region would have received from the EU fund. It is estimated the same amounts lost will be similar this financial year.  Source (Belfast Telegraph)

• How much has Brexit cost the UK?  Two months after the UK’s full departure from the EU, the painful consequences of that decision are becoming ever clearer. N early all economists agree that Brexit has left the UK poorer.  Source (New Statesman)

• What Does it Look Like When a Society Commits Suicide? Brexit.  The Results of Brexit are Trickling In — And They’re Catastrophic.  Source (Eudaimonia)

• Biggest Foreign-Worker Exodus Since WWII Adds to Britain’s Woes.

  Foreign workers are leaving Britain at the fastest pace since World War II, presenting a challenge to an economy already roiled by Brexit and the coronavirus.  “The risk is that people don’t come back, so we have skill and labor shortages and we lose some output, growth and tax revenue permanently,” said Jonathan Portes, a King’s College London economics professor who estimates well over 1 million foreign-born workers may have left. “Given how migration has driven economic growth, particularly in London, that could be bad news.”  Source (Bloomberg)

• OBR Confirms Brexit will Cause Long-term Damage to the UK Economy.  The Government’s Trade & Cooperation Agreement is set to cause a 0.5 per cent short-term hit to GDP and a 4 per cent reduction in productivity in the longer term.  Source (Best for Britain)

• Brexit has delivered the worst of both worlds.  This isn’t the Brexit Leavers voted for and it is exactly the Brexit Remainers voted against.   Source (London Economic)

• The Brexit deal locks the UK into continued Strasbourg Human Rights court membership.  The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement contains a number of provisions ‘locking-in’ the UK’s continued commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).   Source (Blogs LSE)

• Minister slams UK Gov attitude towards Wales as ‘breathtaking, reckless and arrogant’ over lack of EU cash replacement.  He made the comments after it was confirmed that the replacement for EU funding in Wales will bypass Welsh Government and will be distributed directly by Whitehall to councils and other local bodies.  The change means that the Welsh Government will lose the £680m a year it got from the EU, which made up 4% of its budget.  Source (Nation Cymru)

• Follmann Chemie stops Sealock Andover investment over Brexit.  A planned expansion of an Andover business worth millions of pounds has been cancelled after the ‘catastrophic’ impact of Brexit.  Source (Andover Advertiser)

• Norway’s PM announces trade deal with UK.

  Norwegian Prime minister Erna Solberg tells a press conference that Norway and the UK have concluded the Scandinavian country’s most comprehensive free trade agreement ever, but warns that some trade barriers remain and that trade access will be inferior to what the two countries enjoyed when the UK was an EU member. of Prime minister Erna Solberg.  Source (UK News Yahoo)

• New trade deal could mean cheaper fish and chips with more Grimsby jobs but hurts local fishermen.

  ‘This is another missed opportunity, and our crews have been overlooked once again’.  Representatives of the fishing industry in Humberside have branded a new £22billion post-Brexit trade deal as nothing more than smoke and mirrors which will see UK vessels miss out.

  The agreement with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will allow for tariffs on the import of haddock, shrimps and prawns to be significantly slashed among other measures.  Source (Grimsby Telegraph)

• Boris Johnson confronts hard choices of his free trade agenda.

  Australia deal is a prize for UK government but would set precedents.  Source (Financial Times)

• UK signs Australia free trade deal despite farmer concerns.

  Responding to news of a deal, Glyn Roberts, president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales said: “We have grave concerns that we could end up with a deal that’s catastrophic for animal welfare, the environment, our family farms and our food security – and that it will be set in stone.”  

  Mr Roberts said MPs must take warnings extremely seriously about the implications of a trade deal that sets the UK on a permanent legally-binding course to open us up to food produced to lower environmental and welfare standards, and undermines our food security and the viability of our family farms.  Source (Farmers Weekly)

• ‘Irresponsible’ Australia trade deal will bring ruin for UK farmers, critics warn.

  Scottish National party says tariff-free imports of hormone-treated beef ‘would represent a bitter betrayal of rural communities’

  Farming unions said that proposals for a zero-tariff and zero-quota trade deal would drive farmers out of business, while green groups said allowing Australian hormone-treated beef would breach the Conservatives’ manifesto commitments.  Source (Guardian)

• Brexit Trade Deals Devastate UK Farmers.

  “We’ve been sold down the river.”  Farmers across the UK are warning that the trade deals being hailed as a victory by Brexiteers will decimate their industry and our food quality. 

  They say Boris Johnson has thrown them under the bus.

  Source   Byline TV

• British public are being ‘blindfolded’ on post-Brexit trade deals, farmers warn.

  “I don’t think they kept their promises before Brexit, they promised things to all men. It’s a huge betrayal,” one farmer told TLE.  

  Farmers across the country have hit out at the government’s ongoing trade deals discussions.

  The government announced a “historic” free trade deal with Australia yesterday which they said will “eliminate tariffs on all UK goods”.

  But farmers think the deal is “opening the floodgates” for more similar deals, which they say will be bad for them as well as for consumers.  Source (London Economic)