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Joe Mayes

15 Jan, 9 tweets, 3 min read

@lizzzburden

It's been another torrid week at the border - inundated customs agents, goods stuck for days, companies buckling under the paperwork 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/… w/ @lizzzburden

Take Branimir Vuckovic, 45, who runs goods between the U.K. and EU. He spent this week stuck in Kent because he couldn't find a customs broker to do his Brexit paperwork. Even with traffic levels below normal, the system is being overwhelmed 2/

The government has admitted this problem itself. On a Q&A with businesses on Thursday, Heather Jones from the Border Delivery Group said: `We are starting to realize that customs agents’ capacity and capability is being extremely stretched' 3/ 🚨

Eddie Maybank, an independent customs broker, says he's been having a breakdown. He's forwarding inbound queries on to other agents in Dover, but they've told him to stop. `I’m inundated, and so is everyone else,' he said 4/

UK-Ireland trade has been badly affected, particularly food shipments. Stephen McAneney of Allied Fleet Services in NI said he saw consignments of potatoes, apples and cream being destroyed at ports because they lacked the right documents 5/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Another example: Lukasz Piotrowski has a lorry containing plastic containers for mushrooms destined for Poland stuck in Dover, costing his business ~ £1k a day.

`Neither the export agency in the U.K. nor the import agency in the EU know specifically what to do,' he said 6/

The crunch is being made worse by some big names halting deliveries altogether, such as DB Schenker this week 7/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

A source at Kuehne & Nagel, one of the world's biggest freight forwarders, says they're pulling 90-hour weeks to keep the show on the road, and this is with freight levels at about 60% of the usual. They're worried about what it looks like when it gets busier still... 8/

Now the big test comes. Every week is proving harder than the last. A haulier messages today:

`If Jan 4 was the eye of the Brexit storm... it has just been upgraded to a tsunami' ends/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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More from @Joe_Mayes

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

8 Jan

Trucks are facing days-long delays to move goods between the U.K. and EU, as the Brexit red tape reality bites 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

The early damage of Brexit is happening beyond ports -- it's starting behind the border, at factory gates and collection depots. I spoke to 7 haulage firms and each painted a grim picture of how it's going 2/

Alcaline UK, which has a fleet of 145 vehicles and which moves goods to the EU, said it's had trucks stuck in Italy since Monday because the customer still hadn't provided correct transit documents 3/

Read 17 tweets

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

7 Jan

Scottish fishermen are being told to catch less fish, due to delays created by Brexit red tape 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Fish exports to the EU are facing ~4 hour delays because there aren't enough vets to issue health documents, says Jimmy Buchan at the Scottish Seafood Association 2/

“We’re now advising the catching sector to ease up,” Buchan said. ``We can't guarantee we'll get it into the marketplace.'' 3/

Read 6 tweets

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

6 Jan

@AlexJFMorales

Exclusive: in a call with business leaders today, Boris Johnson asked for help identifying regulations that can be torn up post-Brexit 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/… w/ @AlexJFMorales @charlie_ryan1 @AlbertoNardelli

Speaking to ~250 people via Zoom, and flanked by Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Alok Sharma, Johnson was enthusiastic about cutting red tape (of course, Brexit itself creates spades of red tape, but here we are) 2/

Sunak said there are reasons to be optimistic on the economy - consumers have been saving, unemployment not spiked too badly, summer bounce-back shows economy can recover quickly, Brexit uncertainty gone 3/

Read 5 tweets

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

4 Jan

@lizzzburden

It's currently quiet at Britain's Brexit border -- traffic is light due to the New Year's holidays, stockpiling at end of 2020 and depressed demand after France's temporary border closure 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/… w/ @lizzzburden

@richard_bpa

But the logistics industry thinks the real challenge will be in the weeks ahead, as freight levels return to normal. `It's probably the calm before the storm,' said @richard_bpa of the British Ports Association on @BloombergRadio 2/

The Port of Dover says it had an average of 1,000 trucks crossing each day between Dec. 31 and Jan 4. The 2019 daily average was about 6,500, so that's an 85% reduction on normal levels 3/

Read 6 tweets

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

30 Dec 20

Starmer goes hard on Johnson's false claim there will be no non-tariff barriers to trade with the EU. Twice asks Johnson to correct the record. He does not 1/

@UKLabour

Starmer then lays out the wave of bureaucracy that's coming. `This treaty imposes far more red tape on British businesses than there is at the moment', the @UKLabour leader says 2/

You can read about the changes coming here 3/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Read 4 tweets

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

24 Dec 20

New: the U.K. is claiming victory over the EU in the Brexit talks. Let's take a closer look... 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

@EuroGuido

.@EuroGuido has shared a `scorecard' of the negotiations, claiming Britain `won' 43% of the issues in the talks. EU won 17%, 40% were mutual compromise. Bear in mind, this is the British negotiating team marking its own work.. 2/ order-order.com/2020/12/24/exc…

The key q is *how important* are the issues. Just tallying them up doesn't say much. If you won lots of small, low-impact areas, but lost in big areas important to your economy, that's what matters 3/

Read 10 tweets

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