The Office for National Statistics finds similarly that total EU-UK trade has shrunk by 20 per cent. And a model constructed by John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank with offices in both London and Brussels, concludes that goods trade is 11 per cent lower than it would otherwise have been, on top of an earlier 10 per cent fall since the referendum. Such numbers suggest that what was once dismissed as project fear is now project fact. A survey by consultants at Ernst & Young found that 75 per cent of firms had experienced business disruption from Brexit. Small firms found adjusting particularly hard because the EU-UK trade deal was struck just a week before exit, meaning there was no transition period. Services have been particularly hard hit.