A withering assessment of Brexit from CNN, I'm wondering where all the good news stories are when it comes to Brexit? Vaccination is the one thing that people will hold up, although the indisputable fact remains that the UK did nothing on vaccines it couldn't have done as a full EU member (and indeed basically did do, as we were still in transition at the time), but go on, have vaccination if you must. But outside of that, where are the Brexit dividends? What's got better? What's been improved?
The Tescos of this world have simply brute-forced it, they've got the back office operations and business muscle to get to grips with the raft of red tape and paperwork that's involved in being outside the EU, and they can simply pass the cost on without fanfare to the customer.
Small and medium sized businesses however have been absolutely ransacked.
It's been 100 days since the United Kingdom split from its single biggest trading partner and Brexit is proving to be disastrous
, which have rejected Johnson's description of the issues as "teething problems" and are now asking the government to take urgent action to prevent further losses.
"We are calling on both the UK and EU to get back around the table and produce solutions that reduce trade barriers and give exporters a fighting chance," British Chambers of Commerce co-executive director Hannah Essex said in a statement on Monday.
"The difficulties exporters are facing are not just 'teething problems.' They are structural issues that, if they continue to go unaddressed, could lead to long term, potentially irreversible weakness in the UK export sector," she added.
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During negotiations on the Brexit deal, the problem of goods moving between Ireland, which is a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, proved the most intractable. Honoring the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of sectarian violence meant avoiding the return of a border on the island of Ireland.
Instead, Johnson agreed that Northern Ireland would remain subject to EU market rules and to erect a trade border down the Irish Sea to police them, angering pro-British unionists who object to Northern Ireland being treated differently than the rest of the United Kingdom. Johnson had pledged in 2019 that there would be no checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Riots and violence in the streets of Belfast this month have stoked fears of a return to Northern Ireland's troubled past and led a spokesperson for the US State Department to warn that the Good Friday Agreement must not "become a casualty of Brexit."
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UK food and drink exports collapsed in January, driven by a 76% decline in sales to the European Union compared to the same month last year, according to the Food and Drink Federation. Exports of salmon tumbled 98%, beef slid 92% and animal feed declined 80%. Whisky exports fell 63%. According to the Office for National Statistics, exports of food and live animals recovered somewhat in February, but remain below 2020 levels.
"The solution is to swallow our pride and strike a veterinary agreement," according to L. Alan Winters, founding director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. "Without it we are going to see little chance of animal products picking up," he added.
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The new trading relationship is expected to lead to a long-run loss of output in Britain of around 4% compared to remaining in the European Union, according to the UK Office for Budget Responsibility, which produces economic forecasts for the government. Exports and imports will be around 15% lower in the long run.
According to Jerzewska, the trade expert, the main consequence will be the gradual shift of supply chains as EU producers find alternative suppliers. "Businesses follow the path of least resistance and the new barriers to trade can make the UK suppliers less competitive on the EU market," she said.
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