LONDON One month after Britain made a New Year split from the European Union s economic embrace, businesses that once traded freely are getting used to frustrating checks, delays and red tape. British meat exporters say shipments have rotted in trucks awaiting European health checks. Scottish fishermen have protested at Parliament over the catch they can no longer sell to the continent because of complex new paperwork. The manufacturers organization Make U.K. said Monday that 60% of manufacturing companies have experienced significant disruption since Jan. 1. The British government says the troubles are teething problems, but companies say they are causing serious pain.
The British government says the troubles are “teething problems but companies say they are causing serious pain.
“A teething problem is something that will go away eventually,” said Alan Russell, who runs plant retailer Trees Online.
New Customs rules and health checks have prompted him to stop shipping to the EU and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK but remains in the bloc’s economic orbit because it shares a border with EU member Ireland.
“It’s 5 or 10 per cent of my business I have just lost overnight,” Mr Russell said.
“I’m used to a little bit of unpredictability. But this is without doubt the most severe and unpredictable event that I can’t do anything about.”
By Harry Holmes2021-01-07T14:57:00+00:00
The trade deal dodges punishing tariffs, but there are plenty of changes for the UK food industry to adapt to, despite little notice
It went down to the wire, but a UK-EU trade agreement is finally in place. The impacts will touch almost every corner of the food industry, yet the deal’s full implications will not be understood for months, if not years.
Perhaps most vitally, the deal avoids punishing tariffs that could have pushed average food prices up 5%, according to Tesco chairman John Allan. Given the majority of the UK’s food imports come from the EU, BRC CEO Helen Dickinson says the deal should allow British households to breathe “a collective sigh of relief”.
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Britons are waking to a new dawn today, the first day the United Kingdom is no longer tethered to the rules of the European Union.
As far as divorces go, this one has been especially protracted: years of negotiations, missed deadlines and extensions.
For some analysis on day one of the split, PM spoke to David Henig, UK Director with the European Centre for International Political Economy, an independent policy think tank.
Duration: 4min 6sec
London, United Kingdom – The UK is bracing for a historic break from the European Union that will reset the relationship between them for generations to come.
More than four years after a slim majority of Britons voted in favour of quitting the EU, the UK will leave the bloc’s single market and customs union at 23:00 GMT on Thursday, December 31.
As the new year starts, the two sides must abide by the terms of a recently inked deal, which sets boundaries on their trade and security relationships.
On Wednesday, the UK Parliament speedily approved the deal, meaning it has now passed into UK law.