Renegotiation needed to rescue firms from Brexit disaster

From: Peter Brown, Shadwell, Leeds.

A BILLION pounds of checks on some goods from the European Union are being abandoned – even before they started (The Yorkshire Post, April 29).

Isn’t it time to stop such tinkering, call out what a disaster Boris Johnson’s Brexit has been, negotiate something better with the EU and rid British firms of bureaucracy costing many, many times that sum?

For political reasons, Ministers want to tinker with the Northern Ireland Protocol. Why stop there?

Business and common sense say a much bigger renegotiation is desperately needed.

Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg says it would be “wrong to impose new administrative burdens and risk disruption at ports”.

But then how do you argue the bureaucracy and border delays already imposed by this Government are right?

Mr Rees-Mogg’s statement was meant to stop things getting even worse.

Arguably, it’s not even doing that.

It’s baking in a competitive disadvantage for British companies which have already had billions of pounds of extra paperwork and delays thrust upon them.

The ones just dropped would have added a further £1bn annually to import costs, says Mr Rees-Mogg: A drop in the English Channel then, when compared with what has been added already to United Kingdom firms’ bottom line by Brexit.

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman reckons export losses alone total £20bn, you reported recently (in a piece titled Region’s firms ‘hurting’ over loss of exports, The Yorkshire Post, April 22).

EU members were ready for Brexit from day one.

Yet those who champion it – such as Mr Rees-Mogg – are still floundering almost 500 days since the transition period ended.

It’s unlikely then “sunlit uplands” will result from their Brexit. Only from reversing it – including removal of the costly port disruption and administrative burdens they’ve already imposed.

Elsewhere, it’s reported Mr Rees-Mogg admitted the new red tape was being dropped because it would have been “an act of self-harm”.

How many other Brexit consequences could have been avoided if only that brake had been applied before now?