Sky News have obtained a copy of notice given to Dutch businesses by their government (HERE) advising them to avoid using British parts in goods sold for export under any of the EU's existing free trade agreements. This is because UK parts after Brexit will not be counted as local content and the goods may not qualify for tariff exemption. Sky have spoken to a car industry executive who is quoted in the article saying:
"The hard Brexiteers have built a bomb under the UK automotive industry and the EU have lit it," said one chief executive.
These are worrying times for the car industry. We still do not know what Brexit means, but we are beginning to see the cost of whatever it is.
Meanwhile, John Thompson, the head of HMRC in evidence to the Treasury Select Committee said today that business would pay the same amount of money (£20 billion) for the Max Fac option or no deal (HERE). This seems to have come as a surprise to many people but it's obvious that exporters from third countries into the EU will have exactly the same paperwork whether we have a maximum facilitation deal or not. Max Fac might speed things up at the border but it won't save exporters a bean. Just as well then that the EU have rejected it anyway - at least as a solution to the Irish border.
And plenty of Brexiteers like Jacob Ress-Mogg have attacked the £20 billion figure as being inflated or unrealistic (HERE) anyway, but Mr Thompson explained where the number came from:
"HMRC estimated that the max-fac model would on average cost businesses £32.50 per customs declaration, a figure that was reached by averaging estimates from three independent reports – one by Ipsos MORI in 2015, one by KPMG in 2018 for the Dutch government, and one from Nottingham University Business School in 2013".
So, now it's not just remoaners in The Treasury or the Bank of England or HMRC who are wrong, it's Ipsos MORI, KPMG, the Dutch government and Nottingham University as well. I wonder if there is ever a flicker of self-doubt in the mind of Mr Rees-Mogg or is it the education that gives Etonians an inflated sense of their own superior intellect? Everybody, right up to Uncle Tom Cobley, is wrong except them.
To paraphrase René Descartes: I think therefore I am right.
