We have yet another story of the costs of Brexit here. The correct reaction to which comes in two parts. As always, the obvious one, that these are the rules being imposed by the EU. This is the nonsense of bureaucracy that they impose, not us. The second and more subtle one is that if we, as outside the EU, now have to do these things then this is just evidence of the costs that the EU imposes on all the 6.5 billion people outside the EU. Or even, upon the 450 million consumers inside the remnant EU:
A commercial cheesemaker in Cheshire has been left with a £250,000 Brexit hole in his business as a direct result of the UK’s departure from the EU on 1 January.
Simon Spurrell said he has lost 20% of his sales overnight after discovering he needed to provide a £180 health certificate on retail orders to consumers in the EU, including those buying personal gift packs of his award-winning wax-wrapped cheese worth £25 or £30.
So, we can think of this as an imposition upon that poor forlorn exporter. Which it is, of course.
We can also think of this as an imposition upon the r-EU consumer. She can’t get ahold of those lovely goods made better, cheaper, faster, by J. Foreigner because of the bureaucracy imposed by the federasts. It is a diminution of the r-EU lifestyle that these rules cause.
Hmm, OK. That means that while we were in the EU, those 40 years, our own lifestyles were diminished by these bureaucratic impositions by the federasts, weren’t they? Those 6.5 billion people out there could not send us those things they do better, faster, cheaper, because of these pieces of federasty.
That is, as I keep insisting, we must recognise these tales of disaster for what they are. These are not stories of the rules we are now subject to post-Brexit. They are tales of the disasters we are no longer subject to post-Brexit.
Won’t the health certificate cover batches of product, or maybe it is for his production, so one will cover many orders?
I note a USA company on the web advertising its gift service sending cheeses to France and other destinations, so it certainly seems to be possible.
And why has he waited until now not to address the issue?
Good questions, although perhaps this producer has only become aware of the (un?)necessary paper work recently, it has only been 3 weeks after all. Never-the-less, sending US cheese to France is perhaps the most ludicrous thing imaginable. Eating cheese in the States is only marginally more pleasant than chewing on the plastic wrapper that it comes packaged in.
How many years ago did we vote to leave? Sure he had just five minutes to prepare for this. If you do not know how to do business, best you don’t try ’til you do.
The guy takes orders by email from individual customers in Europe and sends each package individually. The BBC (of course) says that this is a cost of Brexit and claims he has been advised by Department of Trade officials to set up a hub in France so that he can send a large batch to France and someone in France can forward the packages individually (which cuts down on the number of £180 certificates but ignores the cost of hiring/sharing a warehouse in France and employing someone to sort and forward all his lovely packages of cheese, probably more than… Read more »
This is exactly why, in the US, the sudden loss of thousands of XL Pipeline jobs is no big deal, because environmental reforms will “put everyone to work.”
Unless you’re selling a lot of cheese in the EU why bother with that? You form an EU company to take the legal responsibilities (if applicable to your situation) and contract a fulfilment provider.
Try telling that to the never ever wrong chippy Dr North
Tim, Do you seriously think that our beurocrats won’t create equally idiotic regulations?
When we were in the EU were we desperately campaigning to getthe regulations reduced, or were we happily implementing everything? I think that tells you the answer!
The ‘we’, who were happily implementing (and gold-plating) every idiotic EU regulation, being our ‘Rolls Royce’ civil service, abetted by our dim and idle politicians.