With a new Prime Minister in the offing and today no fewer than 12 potential candidates throwing their hat into the ring it’s fair to say that with Brexit on the 29th of March having been cancelled and then Brexit 2.0 on the 12th of April coming and going, no one has a clue as to how Brexit 3.0 will now play out.
Candidates vary in their attitude from being perfectly willing to accept a Brexit 3.0 with no deal on the 31st of October to a second referendum and even going back to the EU to ask for an even longer extension and hoping that it might be granted. In the middle of all this regardless who becomes PM they are in an incredibly weak position politically with Labour calling for a General Election and edging towards a second referendum, although in truth Labour are just as divided on Brexit as the conservatives.
Preparing for Brexit 3.0 when you don’t know what will happen is expensive and as many have already discovered can be largely pointless. Car manufacturers paused production when Brexit was supposed to happen earlier this year and many businesses stock piled materials, stepped up production and situated stock in the EU and then nothing happened. Twice.
Today, the CBI have written an open letter to candidates for PM on behalf of the 190,000 firms they represent. Calling for a deal and a clear warning to avoid a no deal Brexit, Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, says that most businesses simply can’t prepare for a no deal Brexit.
“Firms large and small are clear that leaving the EU with a deal is the best way forward. Short-term disruption and long-term damage to British competitiveness will be severe if we leave without one. The vast majority of firms can never be prepared for no-deal, particularly our SME members who cannot afford complex and costly contingency plans.”
– Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general, CBI
For online sellers, it might be fair to say that most businesses will have to face Brexit challenges at some point in the future anyway. It’s worth remembering the the so called “Deal” is merely a transition deal while our main trading relationship with the EU is negotiated for the future. A bad deal could end up being worse as it limits what negotiations are possible in the future but equally a no deal means we take the pain immediately up front.
We already trade with much of the world on WTO terms and online sellers cope admirably, the preparations most sellers need is to know that their carrier partners are ready and that their software solutions will be able to produce whatever customs paperwork is required and be able to calculate tariffs for goods entering and leaving the country.
The biggest uncertainty for small businesses could potentially come from exchange rates and the ability to order stock and manage supplies to and from the EU and the rest of the world. With outcomes ranging from no deal on the 31st of October to yet another extension for an indeterminate period, what are you doing to prepare for Brexit 3.0… or have you washed your hands of the whole thing and simply carrying on with business as normal with a wait and see attitude? Will Brexit even happen or will the whole thing end up being cancelled?
12 Responses
If Brexit occurs it will be in name only
3 yesrs and still no further forward
Is not accidental
Furthermore, as for Nigel’s comments on allowing more the right kind of immigrants from India, Africa etc, rather than the wrong type, they are just laughable.
Not only have these immigrants been subjected to great prejudices and racial abuse as well as stereotyping for generations !. (Let’s not forget the first Jamaicans, Indians etc were ‘invited’ to the UK to fill badly short labour gaps.)
To think the general and majority group of British Citizens will prefer these people whether they be a ‘doctor’ over a White ‘Cristian’ Polish immigrant is just ridiculous.
Brexit and its arguments are a joke and .only believe to people who have an IQ of less than 90.
“We already trade with much of the world on WTO terms and online sellers cope admirably”
Sadly this is untrue. Every country on the planet has some form of trade deal with another country. It was thought that Mauritania was the only country in the World operating on purely WTO rules (Mauritania has a GDP of 0.2% of the UK) until somebody found that actually, by default, they do have a one-way deal with the UK.
If we drop out without a deal, just to appease nutcases who hate forriners, then we are likely to see mass unemployment, divorces, house repossessions, and probably suicides within the next couple of years.
I suspect it will be extremely difficult to ship anything from the UK to another country unless the courier company is paid ‘up-front’ for any import duties. This means that sellers will probably have to provide a bond in case the recipient doesn’t want to pay the WTO tariff.
Also, from what I understand, when shipping to the US, we may lose ‘most favored nation’ status which means that whereas import duties in the US that were, for example, 2.3%, will now jump to 40%. We aren’t going to sell much stuff to anybody if these are the duty rates.
Still. Sovereignty, blue passports, and fish…..
@Paul Caisley
If you hadn’t already noticed suicide rate in the UK is record numbers already thanks to crazy cost of UK house prices…Bring on Brexit house prices are already on the slide.