Just teething troubles? No, it’s permanent

YOU are probably aware of the people and businesses that are facing crippling import/export charges and other costs/ charges not required as a member of the Single Market.

The Cheshire Cheese Co, for example, has lost 20% of its sales overnight after discovering these extra costs.

It had hoped to avoid them with the tariff-free “cakist” deal that Johnson was so proud to announce.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) is encouraging UK businesses to register new firms within the EU single market to avoid the extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit. I kid you not!

So, in order to avoid these charges, The Cheshire Cheese Co will now have to switch a £1m investment it was planning to make in a new distribution centre in Macclesfield to the EU, with the loss of 20 jobs and tax revenue to the UK.

Environment Secretary, George Eustice, insisted the additional red tape and paperwork required to export goods out of Britain to the EU will be fine once businesses have adapted to the new requirements. He ignores the extra financial burdens that leaving the Single Market entails. The government is very good at ignoring such “minor” details.

These are not “teething troubles“and will not go away.

I’d really like to know what is so clever about resolving this self-inflicted problem by encouraging firms to invest in expanding their businesses in the EU.

How many small businesses would be in a position, or have the desire, to do this? How are they expected to survive?