I have always been convinced that Brexit will be bad for business and the economy although I've been surprised how slow the effects have been to surface which has allowed leavers to keep up the 'scaremongering' narrative whenever official forecasts point to a negative impact. However, reading the Brexit Central website occasionally I am heartened by the paucity of credible supporters among the business community.
This week they have Simon Boyd, MD of REIDsteel in Christchurch, Dorset urging us on to a no deal Brexit and writing an article with the title: I export to 140 countries and say we should reject Theresa May’s deal and embrace a WTO Brexit (HERE). Yes, yes, I know you've never heard of him but I note his company contributed £5000 to Brexit Central so they're clearly very keen on Brexit although I'm not sure why.
However, when you read the article you find they are not quite what they seem. REIDsteel has exported to 140 countries in the last 90 years so it's not as if they do it every year. Also their product is essentially structural steel buildings, not really high technology stuff and certainly not just-in-time or fresh produce with a limited shelf life. It's clear from their website any steel which is exported is shipped in containers so I don't believe they use the Dover-Calais crossing or the Channel Tunnel.
But fair enough they do export stuff and we should encourage it. But then I go to Companies House and look at the size of REIDsteel - it had a turnover to March 2018 of £19 million, presumably some of which was domestic sales, on which it made a loss of £423,000 (HERE). It's a relatively small business.
Then, out of curiosity, I looked at Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK Ltd (HERE) in Sunderland. They had a turnover in 2017 of £6.354 billion, produced 519,000 cars, about 80% going for export, largely to the EU, and they employed 7,755 people directly and many more in the supply chain. They are desperately worried about leaving on WTO terms - even the Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe raised this with Theresa May at the G20 meeting in Argentina recently.
This is the problem with people like Simon Boyd and others in the business community - people like James Dyson and Tim Martin the usually inebriated boss of Weatherspoons - they are only looking at things from their own narrow perspective. I don't think using WTO terms would impact REIDsteel very much at all yet they're enthusiastic enough to pay £5K to Brexit Central and write articles directing other companies over the cliff edge.
Single bespoke contracts of the kind REIDsteel are involved in with an agreed price including paying someone to handle all the shipping and customs paperwork is fine when you're exporting, as are a few days waiting at a border. Nissan on the other hand are making 10,000 vehicles a week using JIT processes and have a published, fixed price list which they have to stick by. Controlling the costs is central and anything which adds to costs such as delays at the border or recording the source of every part in order to satisfy Rules of Origin is a huge and costly problem.
If REIDsteel went bust because of Brexit hardly anyone would notice. If Nissan left it would be irreplaceable and the loss to the North East would be enormous.
Simon Boyd is not unlike another Brexit Central contributor Roger Kendrick (HERE) essentially a small time, short sighted Europhobe. If these are the best that they can offer I know in the long run we cannot lose.
