Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Red tape exodus
One of the more interesting aspects of Liz Truss's campaign to be Tory leader is that she appears to be basing her rather dodgy economic agenda on advice from Patrick Minford, an economist whose every prediction about Brexit has proved to be wrong.
Minford is not the only one, of course, who has got things wrong in predictng how Brexit will play out. Nearly everything we were promised by the pro-Brexit campaign has turned out to be nonsense.
That does not stop the brexiteers from trying to blame others when things go wrong of course, whether they argue it is the fault of the French for the queues outside Dover, or the responsibility of the EU for enforcing an agreement these people negotiated, signed up for and campaigned on, despite its obvious flaws. UK Tory Ministers made all the key decisions and they need to start taking responsibility for them.
During the campaign itself, many of us were arguing that the border and import/export controls and red tape would lead to jobs moving abroad. We were told that we were scaremongering. Unfortunately, once more we have been proved right, and the brexiteers, wrong.
One example of that is referred to in today's Independent, who report that a leading British wine agent has decided to leave the UK citing "incredibly complicated" post-Brexit paperwork, leading to a hole in his revenue.
He had calculated that Brexit is adding an average of more than £1.50 to the cost of every bottle of European wine sold to consumers. Following Brexit, lead times from order to delivery of shipments have stretched from 7 to 10 days to as much as 21 days from Spain, 26 days from France, 35 from Germany or Austria and 45 to 70 from Italy:
Mr Lambert said he is moving to Montpellier in France later this week with his family, where he would set up a French company to export back to his own company in Wales. His wine company Daniel Lambert Wines Ltd supplies to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and nearly 300 other independent retailers.
"In just one week I will finally leave Brexitland for good," he said in a tweet last Friday.
"Let me know if anyone ever finds those sunlit uplands. Not expecting an answer anytime soon."
And so say all of us.
Minford is not the only one, of course, who has got things wrong in predictng how Brexit will play out. Nearly everything we were promised by the pro-Brexit campaign has turned out to be nonsense.
That does not stop the brexiteers from trying to blame others when things go wrong of course, whether they argue it is the fault of the French for the queues outside Dover, or the responsibility of the EU for enforcing an agreement these people negotiated, signed up for and campaigned on, despite its obvious flaws. UK Tory Ministers made all the key decisions and they need to start taking responsibility for them.
During the campaign itself, many of us were arguing that the border and import/export controls and red tape would lead to jobs moving abroad. We were told that we were scaremongering. Unfortunately, once more we have been proved right, and the brexiteers, wrong.
One example of that is referred to in today's Independent, who report that a leading British wine agent has decided to leave the UK citing "incredibly complicated" post-Brexit paperwork, leading to a hole in his revenue.
He had calculated that Brexit is adding an average of more than £1.50 to the cost of every bottle of European wine sold to consumers. Following Brexit, lead times from order to delivery of shipments have stretched from 7 to 10 days to as much as 21 days from Spain, 26 days from France, 35 from Germany or Austria and 45 to 70 from Italy:
Mr Lambert said he is moving to Montpellier in France later this week with his family, where he would set up a French company to export back to his own company in Wales. His wine company Daniel Lambert Wines Ltd supplies to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and nearly 300 other independent retailers.
"In just one week I will finally leave Brexitland for good," he said in a tweet last Friday.
"Let me know if anyone ever finds those sunlit uplands. Not expecting an answer anytime soon."
And so say all of us.
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Minford made one correct prediction as a result of Brexit: the steady destruction of British industry. He thought this was a good thing.
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