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Business leaders have warned that a “wave” of Brexit red tape will hit British industry on January 1, even if a trade deal is reached in the coming days.
The Deputy Director General of the Confederation of British Industry Josh Hardie pleaded with the UK and the EU to redouble efforts to prepare companies, saying speed was now essential.
He said he was confident there would be a trade deal in the next few days, because taking the UK and 27 EU countries off a cliff on January 1 would be a political failure.
“It is almost impossible for me to believe that politicians on both sides would allow our countries to not reach an agreement. The mutual interest in reaching an agreement has never been stronger after a pandemic or a medium pandemic, ”he said.
“Preparation does not mean protection if a tsunami is approaching. You can put the sandbags in, and that helps a bit, but the water is still going to pass through, ”he said.
As survey after survey shows that companies don’t have the complete information they need to be Brexit ready, Hardie urged the UK and the EU to inform companies what any trade deal would require them to do to meet Brexit by crossing. from Dover to Calais, or any other border between the UK and the EU.
“Once the free trade agreement is on the line, don’t breathe a sigh of relief and hang your head. In fact, move on to the next, because this has a long way to go, ”he said.
Ben Fletcher, a director at Make UK, which represents manufacturers, predicted a hibernation period for some companies in early 2021.
“I think there is a lot of nervousness and a lot of uncertainty. Some companies tell us: ‘We are not going to try to move merchandise in and out of the country, because we want to see how the land is in the first weeks,’ “he said.
Food and beverage providers are particularly nervous about loss of assets, and Scottish politicians urge a ‘fish and chicks’ policy that allows trucks carrying shellfish and day-old laying hens to top the queues which will probably take place in Kent.
Trade concerns arise a week after a five-mile queue of trucks developed on the access road to the Eurotunnel in Folkestone as the French rehearse Brexit checks.
Both Make UK and CBI have asked the EU to indicate whether it will match some of the “flexibility” shown by the UK, which has decided to ease Brexit customs and regulatory controls for six months to mitigate the disruption.
Fletcher said some companies were so “physically and intellectually tired” that they just didn’t have the ability to “spend two weeks over Christmas reading a very, very complicated deal and getting advice on what it means to them, and trying to update their systems.” . ”.
The CBI added that some of the critical information companies needed to prepare was outside the scope of the free trade agreement and needed to be agreed quickly, including agreements on cross-border data transfer, business travel permits for engineers repairing machinery and, in particular, rules. of origin, which will determine which goods are defined as “British” and are eligible for sale in the EU in a trade agreement.
“Will companies be fined for honest mistakes at the borders? What about the gradual introduction of changes to the rules of origin? Hardie asked.
A cohesive and concerted government and business effort to mitigate queues and chaos will be critical in the countdown to and immediately after January 1.
“One of the things the pandemic has taught us is that when business and government work together, the results for communities are better. We need to apply that same rigor to the next two months. All of our shoulders behind the wheel will move us further and faster than if we did it separately, ”said Hardie.
With only 26 days left until January, “every day matters.” He said it is up to everyone to get “those people who have sadly lost their jobs due to the pandemic” back to work as soon as possible, and that needs a pragmatic post-Brexit approach.
“We need them to get back to work as quickly as possible to do that. We need companies that can invest, to have a stable environment. So all the days that go to waste [on not preparing for Brexit] it is a day that the communities are actually paying for, ”he said.
