Thread by @BestForBritain

Three small businesses share their stories of the first year after Brexit...👇1/
ft.com/content/bc0563…

For Kiran Tawadey, owner of the Hampstead Tea company, it has been a heartbreaking decision but on January 1 she will shut down her UK manufacturing operation as a result of border bureaucracy brought in by Brexit. Five full-time employees will be made redundant. 2/

“We couldn’t hire a new manager or a forklift driver; costs in the UK were going through the roof. It all suddenly became clear." She added clients in Japan, Australia and the rest of the world are now also increasingly requesting to be serviced out of the EU hub. 3/

“I’ve got over the emotional rollercoaster about it all. We have to be pragmatic,” she concludes. “I just don’t know whether the powers-that-be in London know, or even care, about what is happening.” 4/

Paul Jackson, of Chiltern Distribution, was optimistic Brexit would provide opportunities for his Peterborough-based haulage company. But a year into the new regime Jackson says his EU business has collapsed to “almost zero” and his fleet is almost entirely deployed in the UK. 5/

“In a nutshell we’ve got all the worst bits of Brexit and none of the good things. There’s been no advantage from our perspective” he said. “The promises that were made around borders and EU hauliers not being allowed into the UK - a level playing field - that’s not happened.” 6/

Jackson concluded that Chiltern would not be making new investments ahead of the UK government introducing new controls on imports from the EU to the UK in 2022. “We’ll not be making the same mistake twice,” he said. “We’ll just wait and see.” 7/

Mandy Ridyard wants the government to deliver what was promised to the manufacturing industry. “We want to take advantage of trade deals,” said Ridyard, financial director at Produmax, which makes aerospace components near Shipley, West Yorkshire. 8/

Instead she's faced with more red tape than ever, with new border controls when supplying factories in N. Ireland, which make up a fifth of Produmax’s sales. “We have an extra internal border now. There is a lot of extra paperwork and a lot of extra cost that goes with it.” 9/

She added that it “doesn’t seem right” that moving products to Northern Ireland involves the same procedures as shipments to the Philippines, another major market for Produmax. She says 12 months after Brexit, the impact has just been a “hassle” with none of the upside. 10/

The @UKTradeBusiness Commission has produced a series of recommendations to government on how to alleviate these pressures on small businesses. Read more here 👇 11/11
tradeandbusiness.uk/interim-report