Monday 13 July 2020

Check Change Go!

The shock and awe campaign to inform business of the need to prepare for Brexit starts today. I have already has a taste of what's to come in the GOV.UK tweet below. I could have predicted it's a three word slogan - check, change, go - but this leads to three other three word slogans. Check the guidance - make the changes  - let's get going. I wonder how many focus group meetings that took?  How simple it all seems, until you learn that a one hundred page document is to follow with the details.

Gove is apparently making a statement in the House of Commons later which should be interesting. This is the point when reality can no longer be denied. Here's the tweet:

The tweet gives a link where you can sign up to emails to learn how life is going to be made more cumbersome, difficult and costly (a three word slogan?) post Brexit although it won't be couched in those terms naturally.

A couple of other tweets from people I respect for their knowledge of Brexit. Peter Foster retweeting one from Sam Lowe:

This is selling friction as some great benefit - which it is if your intention is to apply the brakes to our international trade.

The Guardian report that three quarters of UK firms are unprepared for Brexit, something that should come as no surprise. On the Today programme this morning just after 7:30 we heard from a manufacturer and a member of the RHA about what they were expecting to hear later.

The RHA member, Kate Lester head of Diamond Logistics in Guildford, said she had not had a single conversation with anyone in government about the changes that are coming. The RHA had been asking for details but that's about it.  Nick Robinson seemed surprised to learn that even freight forwarders didn't know what to expect.

James Greenham of EMS Physio in Oxfordshire, a small manufacturer of medical equipment seemed more relaxed and said they already exported all over the world. The only advice they had had from government so far was to seek "guidance" from their customs agents and freight forwarders - i.e. people like Kate Lester presumably who were as much in the dark as he was. What a farce. The semi-sighted leading the blind.

Mr Greenham said some of his customers in the EU were worried about delays - they might also be worried that they will have to pay the VAT up front before the goods will even be allowed in to the EU although he didn't mention it or that EMS will need to have an authorised distributor in the EU legally liable for his equipment. I'm not sure he even realised this. As for "new opportunities" there weren't any he said.

Ms Lester only saw a reduction in opportunities. Some of her customers were importers of Chinese goods and she said the UK was a hub for distributing these things throughout Europe but if there were obstacles, more paperwork and delays it would be an incentive to open a new hub in the EU27. 

The campaign will be a difficult balancing act that will ultimately fail. An attempt to bamboozle people with a flashy advertising campaign, into believing that Brexit is a good thing but it will instead start to reveal the terrible, grinding reality of it all.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is to give details today of the new points based immigration system which will apply at the same time as we exit the transition period - while business is struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic - which will make it harder to employ foreigners.  You couldn't make this up.
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