I noticed yesterday on Twitter that the PM is coming in for criticism from some of his own MPs with his chaotic late decision making resulting in what one called "mess after mess." Tom Newton-Dunn The Sun's political editor has a piece in The Times about Johnson, when they worked together, where he says this:
"The other thing I remember is that though his articles were consistently brilliant, they were always late. Very late. Sometimes so late, the man who is now prime minister used to have to barricade himself inside his glass box to keep out the sub-editors, desperate for copy as the printing presses began to whir while he continued to tap away."
Johnson still thinks he's writing a newspaper column where the impact of being late is limited to a bit of embarrassment. Now he's running the county his tardiness is costing lives.
Meanwhile, Brexit supporting newspapers like The Express are joyful that chaos has been avoided at Dover, with a report tweeted like this:
Brexit victory as Dover port runs smoothly - remoaners’ chaos warning proved FALSE https://t.co/4QlY87jRGr
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) January 5, 2021
I think these sorts of tweets are worth preserving. Rod Mackenzie of the Road Haulage Association reports hauliers are avoiding Dover and Folkestone with very low volumes being reported. Some claiming only around 1000 trucks per day passing through Dover compared to an average of 6000 per day and 10,000 on busy days.
I suppose this was always foreseeable in the first few days of 2021. There has been significant stockpiling and it may be a while before the impact begins to be felt. It may be that traffic volumes remain depressed for sometime. Indeed, it's hard to see how the peak levels will ever be possible again with all the additional red tape.
Bloomberg report that these extra costs, "could add 3 billion pounds ($4.1 billion) in costs for food importers, according to the U.K.’s Food and Drink Federation. That’s about an 8% increase -- some of which could work its way down to prices paid at checkouts."
Simon Lane, owner of fruit and vegetable importer Fruco Plc,told Bloomberg that transport costs have soared in the aftermath of last week’s debacle, and any holdups for those cargoes would contribute to higher prices for wholesalers, retailers and shoppers.
Many EU hauliers have reportedly stopped making journeys to the UK, preferring to wait until things have settled down. This will drive up rates among the hauliers who are willing to take the risk.
I confess I haven't seen any reports of government IT systems not working so I can only assume that they are. This is a surprise I must admit. Perhaps with low'ish volumes police are not necessarily enforcing the Kent Access Permit System and the Goods vehicle Movement Service is probably not even needed to manage traffic levels and prevent queues on the M20. All of which is good.
On another issue, a man named Edwin Hayward, an author of a book about Brexit, is compiling a list of foreign companies who are refusing to ship goods to the UK or are charging the customer more to do so. He has a list of 180+ so far and growing by the day. This is due to VAT rules being changed in the UK.
The rule change means foreign companies need to be registered in the UK for VAT purposes with no minimum level of turnover and even the old rule about items below £15 being exempt. This means the smallest businesses need to register and pay HMRC for the privilege of gathering and remitting UK VAT to the government. Understandably, many if not most of them won't do it and have simply posted a message on their website saying as of 1 January, they are unable to ship to the UK.
I think this is part of a wider EU initiative to reduce VAT avoidance but most EU countries have applied a minimum turnover of 35,000 Euros so most small on-line traders are exempt. We haven't done that although I expect we will very shortly.
