I have said everything there is to say about just how bad the removal of easement is, and it will have a catastrophic effect on both on and off wine sales in the UK. Everyone in industry agrees. But this issue has revealed a fundamental problem within the trade. The trade itself does not act with one voice. Many look to the WSTA but sadly (and I do mean this) it’s very unfortunate their lobbying is not working. Then you have a few lone voices like mine and others who bang the drum, but equally not have much effect.

Since 2021 I have consistently and regularly reminded people in the UK Wine industry that the Prohibitionist plan to seriously disrupt, and to an extent, destroy the UK wine industry needs to be taken seriously. It’s SME that will feel most of the pain. Here is why… The policy was created in 2019 and goes under the guise of taxing all alcohol on strength rather than volume. It was written deliberately, by the anti alcohol think tank, to maximise disruption to the largest sector in the UK this being Wine.

I think it’s time for a reminder of the reason why you the consumer are continually screwed over by the elites in the UK. As a front line business to border controls I see the direct effect of Brexit daily. But they’re not finished with this shit show. So here we go… Firstly the actual vote was advisory and therefore did not have all the normal restrictions applied, but even so the electoral commission advised the result was unsafe and illegal. But that doesn’t matter because Cameron ran away only to get a peerage 6 years later.

As a member of the wine trade for over 33 years and a business owner for all of that time I have seen a dramatic change over the decades. But yesterday news on the tax take was quite incredible. Here is why and why you should be concerned. The tax receipts for Alcohol were as follows as reported by HMRC and posted yesterday by @GavinQuinney.

Between Sept ‘23 & Aug ‘24, year-on-year receipts were:

◦£1.3bn lower overall
◦Wine: £238m lower
◦Spirits: £757m lower
◦Beer: £320m lower
◦Cider: £24m lower

I’m a pretty patient guy. On the 23rd April I asked a really basic question to my MP. I asked the same question to the previous government several times earlier. The question was this… Will you remove or keep the wine excise easement after February 2025? This is a simple yes or no question. It not loaded in any way. Now I’m not being funny but a question this simple does not take much time to understand and answer.

Here is a little thread about how the world sees the uk. I’m currently in Mexico at a global wine event. The hospitality and welcome that has been shown to all the delegates is incredible. But the one point that everyone I have spoken to is that Brexit has isolated the UK. At this event there are 45 nationalities in attendance from all over the world 🌎. There are a total of 330 trade professionals in total. So it’s a very solid group to get a global view. I’ve spoken to many people thus far & that been amazing. The wine trade is a global village.

Whilst the trade I work in is seriously pissed off about the the Alcohol Reform system,which is due to come into effect in February 2025, I & all my piers in industry have thus far been unable to explain to the wider public why it will be such a shit storm. I’m going to try here. Excise on wine is not the most exciting subject but the inability to import wine and the likely market collapse would be very bad for millions of people and kill off thousands of hospitality businesses. But this is the reality the wine trade is facing.

A quick thread on something I didn’t think would be an issue due to Brexit, but now is. Jersey/Guernsey as we all know are British overseas territories technically. Whilst they are only 50 miles from the Mainland, but how are supplies going from the UK to them? Well again technically it’s an export to supply wine or anything else to the Channel Islands from the UK. Odd but that how it’s been for quite some time. Now you would think the UK government would never forget about the UK overseas territories. After all there British!

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but all the Brexit types are getting all excited about a bit of news regarding services and the UK being 4th in the world. Whilst that’s lovely it equally demonstrates perfectly how these people just don’t get the bigger picture. The world and to a smaller degree, Europe, produces everything that in a modern world people want/need. It’s not possible for all countries to make/produce everything that everyone wants. This is fairly basic stuff so far.

Back in Jan 21 I got a lot of attention due to my tweets going viral. 3 years one I thought I would use the power of hindsight to see if my tweets were right and if #Brexit is the unmitigated catastrophe many in the remain camp said it would be. For Wine it’s nearly had the full #Brexit exposure being goods that attract huge amounts of revenue for the UK Government. We have the last transition in February ‘25 to look forward to when excise taxes become “unworkable”. But what actually happened so far.

Three years ago @RishiSunak, a tee-total chancellor at the time, came up with the notion that all alcoholic beverages are the same and are made in the same way. What he actually did is start something that will destroy the uk wine industry. Here is why. Many people will have never thought about how pretty much every they consume gets to that retail environment, nor should they, it’s not that exciting. However #Brexit was the game changer where continuing shortages have led people to question where products come from.

Should you be pleased that in the budget alcohol excise duty was frozen until February 2025? The answer is no and you should be deeply concerned what is planned for Feb 25. Here is why the tories have taken everyone for fools again. Firstly the duty increase of August 2023 was the largest increase in tax on all types of alc in 50 years. It was so large that it was responsible for inflation to rise in the wider economy.

This coming week is budget week. It’s time to see if the government really do listen to industry or if they have forgotten they are our servants. Time will tell but allow me to bring you up to speed with the unworkable alcohol proposal scheme. You may recall 2 years ago the government passed laws to change how excise tax (the money charged on Beers, Wines & Spirits) was calculated & charged. It was the brainchild of @RishiSunak who was chancellor at the time. This was the reaction in the press independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

This week marks the next transition in the #Brexit circus. Until now only excise goods were being verified at both EU and UK borders. This does make sense as alcohol and cigarettes are cash cows for the UK government. So what’s changing as of Thursday? On Thursday all goods will be required to have documentation checked by UK customs. This has been postponed many times since Jan 2020 because Dover and The Tunnel for example simply didn’t have the space to do the checks, which is why check zones were built.

People outside my industry have been asking why the strong reaction to the dead cat story of pint bottles. It’s not really about the pint bottles it’s about the continuous effects of government interference and Brexit. Brexit was in their own words “removing unwanted red tape and having seamless trade on a global basis” sounds great and something many voted for (on an advisory basis you understand).

Ok folks I am being asked about this and so like me cut to the chase, it’s absolute bollocks. Why people can’t use their brain is beyond me. Let’s take a step back and think about the supply side.

https://twitter.com/haggis_uk/status/1739915699298963958

Currently winery’s around the globe all use 75cl bottles, yes every single wine producing nation on the planet is running with 75cl bottles, that’s literally billions of bottles. Even the UK!

Here is a little bit of Xmas Brexit bollocks for all the Gammon loving Tories. The government has managed to screw the wine importers of the UK again. It’s like they don’t want you to drink wine made from filthy grapes grown abroad! There latest bit of fuckwittery as follows As of January 1st 2024 all wine arriving on the market must support the company name of whoever brought it to the UK market. If it’s made in the UK /bottled in the UK it must show who made the product & where it was bottled . So far so good. Thats covers 0.09% of wine in the UK.

Following on from my thread earlier in the week & the fact the headline is bollocks, I then had a webinar with our trade body to understand the full details of this new legislation. I must say I was surprised that further barriers to trade are being imposed. So more UK red tape. Just as a recap the headline is clear the UKIP Tories claim they have reduced EU red due to Brexit for my industry. This is a lie. The facts are clear Brexit has caused and continues to cause new UK born red tape or ad the industry calls them Barriers to Trade.

So the Tories have posted this frankly pathetic advertisement. So here are the facts and why what they are claiming is utter bollocks, but it’s fair to say the ukip Tory party has form for making shit up. In fact there pretty good and making stuff up. Here is what the Tories have changed in terms of wine production, importation and exportation since June 23rd 2016.

This past week has proven to me just how desperate & pathetic the UK government has got. The Excise duty increase and the way it is charged came into force on Tuesday at midnight. It’s been a challenging week if you import, and government has been lying at every opportunity. I warned over two years ago when the new system was proposed that it was unworkable, @GavinQuinney put the most fabulous factual data thread together 3 weeks ago with all the stats you could wish for on how costs were increasing.

Why the new trade deal with CPTPP shows us all that Brexit was about tax Evasion, racism, and outside influences. Cast your mind back to the advisory referendum. The result never included the UK Eu voters all 1.1m of them. But that OK it’s was an advisory referendum, non binding yet the government continually referred to it as the “ will of the people” in reality it’s the will of 1/3 of the UK voting public globally, and the other 2/3 can shut up, very democratic.