This report in The Independent (HERE) should be a wake up call to the British government but it almost certainly won't be. It's about Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, and how they're preparing for Brexit. They are miles ahead while in this country industry and government are paralysed by inaction. It really is pathetic.
Huge containerships from China and Asia dock in Rotterdam because there is nowhere in this country big enough to allow them to discharge their cargoes. Goods for the UK are then put aboard other smaller ships to cross The Channel. But they only undergo one set of customs and import procedures. After Brexit, they will need to be re-exported so delaying things for us.
“From a perspective of rationality it’s always hard for us to understand Brexit,” says Mark Dijk, the Rotterdam port authority’s external affairs manager. In some ways, the port is already at the heart of the British economy: its size and depth means that the very biggest ships coming to Europe from East Asia can unload their wares here – it’s the only place they fit.
“We are also a hub for the UK. All the deep-sea ships from China are coming into Rotterdam, and their goods are then going into shallow water ships to the UK,” says Dijk
What comes across is the detailed work being done by the Dutch authorities. The recruitment of hundreds of new customs officers and the planning for a hard Brexit.
“As [the] port of Rotterdam we realised somewhere in September, October last year that something is really going to happen,” Dijk says. “We decided we have to do something about it. There are around 3,000 companies here, they’re not all doing business with the UK, but most of them are.”
One can imagine as we get nearer to December 2020 the full import of what Brexit actually means in practice, in the hundreds of small but all too real effects that we will all notice as a direct result of the catastrophic decision made by Theresa May and Nick Timothy, to leave the single market and the customs union.
