Suzanne Evans, former UKIP deputy chairwoman, was on Newsnight last night giving the usual Brexiteer assurance that leaving the EU and trading on 'global WTO terms' was not a problem, it was all overblown. By coincidence, I was only half listening while flicking through the latest Brexit headlines on my tablet and as she was speaking I was reading about a meeting between the Road Haulage Association and the authorities from Calais (HERE) where these 'overblown' problems were being discussed.
Evans, who recently resigned from UKIP, was a former journalist and is obviously well qualified to pronounce on detailed matters of trade and border and customs checks. So, the RHA would perhaps have been surprised and relieved to learn the problems have been exaggerated.
Richard Burnett, CEO of the RHA, had explained what he thought were some of the problems:
"Mr Burnett set out the complex customs procedures that would be needed, giving the example of one haulier who has 8,000 different shipments on a lorry – each requiring an import and export declaration and a Safety and Security Declaration.
He said that with 3,000 trucks a week crossing the channel for that one firm that would mean millions of pieces of paperwork.
"With each declaration taking 10 minutes you would need 170 people working eight hours a day to process one load," he said. Customs processes simply won’t work."
The RHA's policy director, Duncam Buchanan, was disdainful of the government's preparations. He tweeted:
Two years squandered. Really failed to prepare. Portable toilets planned for M20 and M26 really sums up how poor preparation is. @heliaebrahimi @faisalislam @BBCHelenCatt @RHANews We need Transition to avoid unnecessary disaster. https://t.co/ZzE0kTZjk6— Duncan Buchanan (@RHADuncanB) December 10, 2018
So
you can see the problem I had. Was I to believe Messrs Burnett and
Buchanan or Suzanne Evans with her BA in Religious studies from Lancaster University? More importantly am I more or less inclined
towards caution and the experts, when the feeding of a nation of 65 million
people is involved?
Difficult, eh?
