Three years after the UK officially left the European Union, three-quarters of British businesses are complaining that extra costs and paperwork have crippled trade with continental neighbours.
One such company, the award-winning Round Corner brewing company in Leicestershire, said post-Brexit price hikes have drastically increased transportation and export fees.
Co-founder Combie Crayan said he saw business with Europe dry up after Brexit.
“In the old world, in a sort of common market, it was a case of beer costing 20 quid whether you were sending that to Amsterdam or to Dublin. Great. Now that’s 200 quid. And who wants to pay 200 quid on top of a price of a case of beer? No one”, Crayan said.
The UK economy, like others around the world, has been rattled by pandemic restrictions and the shockwaves from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that the UK would be the only G7 economy to fall into negative growth this year of 0.6%.
But the UK’s Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, slammed reports of a declining British economy last Friday and argued that the experts were not basing their data on the real situation on the ground.
“Just this month, columnists from both left and right have talked about an existential crisis, Britain teetering on the edge and that all we can hope for is that things don’t get worse.
“I welcome the debate, but chancellors too are allowed their say, and I say simply this, declinism about Britain is just wrong. It’s always been wrong in the past and it’s wrong today” he added.
Hunt has argued that post-Brexit changes to financial regulations will eventually help to raise the UK’s low productivity rate.
However, business owners like Cryan argue otherwise.
“People knew our beer there [on mainland Europe] and would follow it. And immediately one of the direct impacts of Brexit is that that disappeared overnight. So it has definitely changed our plans” he said.
“So our fans in Europe probably aren’t getting access to some of the best beers around. And all of it leads to us really sort of not being able to run the business in the way we want with the same growth prospects that we want.”
According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, the inflation rate stood at 10.5% at the end of December, a 0.2% decrease from November and 11.1% in October.
However, inflation in the UK is higher than in the US and the 20 nations that use the euro currency.
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