The invisible Brexit

In the past I have written about the Brexit of the small things, how a few changes make the most simple things more difficult or expensive.

We all know of the possible queues at Dover or the shortages of some goods in shops, but what of the things we cannot see.

The loss of GDP.

It being too difficult or expensive to export/import.

Couriers giving up on shipping to NI or the EU.

The collapse of the small and medium suppliers to the automotive and aerospace industries.

The collapse will be slow, almost onvisible, but when we go to use it in the futire, it will no longer be there.

Hauliers say the first week of Brexit was bad, the second will be worse. The industry pleaded for a 6 month extension, our own Government refused.

The 160 pages of the Border Operating Model was delivered at 18:00 on New Year's Eve, six hours before it was to go live.

There is now a cpmplex 18 stage process in exporting seafood from Scotland to France, and 8 coming the other way.

The Government, Ministers and the ERG pretended that there wasn't going to be issues, but just wishing a problem away doesn't make it go away. Its still there, and what was an issue four years ago when the freight industry raised it when it could be fixed, is now a critical issue, and make exports all but impossible.

With almost no cross-border traffic, companies are soon going to start to be stressed, and need financial help, on top of that for COVID. It could all have been avoided. But Johnson ploughed on.

And it seems not just fishing, automotice, aerospace, freight transport, cross border ratail that have been shafted, so has the creative industries. It seems that the EU offered the UK the standard 90 day no visa option for artists and musicians, but the UK refused, as it would have to have offered the same to EU artists. Only Johnson tried to blame the EU on this, so now the truth is out, and a sector that brought in £5.3 billion in 2019 has been cut adrift coming after almost no income during 2020 due to COVID, I think to describe anger is building is somewhat of an understatement.

There is calls for the agreement to be renegotiated, but the timeframe for that, even if JOhnson were to accept the need, is months.

But this could all have been avoided. But wasn't.