Monthly Archives: August 2021

More than two-thirds of the UK public feel left in the dark about the impact that post-Brexit trade deals struck by the Government will have.

The International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, has been tasked with establishing bespoke deals.

But while a host of rollover deals with countries have been secured, mirroring the terms that had initially been in place when a member of the European bloc, and fresh agreements with Japan and Australia have been signed, a survey has found that Britons feel the Government has not been open about what the bilateral treaties entail.

A survey of more than 3,000 UK adults found that 67 per cent felt the public receives too little information from ministers about trade deals, with only seven per cent recording they knew that the UK had a deal with Japan.

A quarter of consumers who took part in the poll conducted on behalf of consumer choice group Which? said they felt the Government was not at all open about the impact new trade deals will have.

Critics have voiced concern that the free trade deal agreed with Australia in June will see British farmers undercut by food coming from Australia that does not meet the same high standards in the UK.

Out of those surveyed, almost nine in 10 felt all food imported should align with current UK domestic food standards.

Sue Davies, head of consumer rights and food policy at Which?, said: The Government must take this opportunity to communicate transparently and openly with the public about trade negotiations and push for a consumer chapter to be included in future deals.

See the original post:

Public 'in the dark' over UK Brexit trade deals, according to survey - Border Counties Advertizer

Voters who hold authoritarian values were more likely to vote Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Cameron Ballard-Rosa,Mashail A. Malik,Stephanie J. Rickard and Kenneth Scheve show that these values are in turn related to long-term economic shocks associated with globalisation, by using data on the varied effect of changes in Chinese imports on the labour market across Britain.

Fifty-two percent of voters chose Leave in the UKs 2016 referendum on EU membership. Who voted Leave and why? One of the strongest predictors of voting for Brexit was a bundle of characteristics often referred to as authoritarian values. Authoritarian values can be understood as an individual preference for order and conformity and belief that these value outcomes should be achieved by force if necessary.

Authoritarian values played a key role in the Brexit vote, as illustrated in Figure 1, which presents a smoothed locally weighted average drawn from a nationally representative sample of adults in the United Kingdom of the proportion of respondents voting Leave against a measure of authoritarian values. As can be seen in the figure, there is a remarkably strong association between individuals with greater authoritarian tendencies and the likelihood of voting in favour of Brexit: while individuals with the lowest observed authoritarian values have under a 20% likelihood of voting for Brexit, respondents with the highest authoritarian values have over a 90% likelihood of doing so.

Where do authoritarian values come from? Why do some people have stronger authoritarian values than others? We argue that contemporaneous economic threats increase the likelihood that people adopt authoritarian values. Economic shocks that have a sustained long-term negative effect on local communities can engender value change. We focus on one potential source of economic threat: the impact of Chinese imports on local labour market outcomes in the United Kingdom.

UK imports from China have increased dramatically over the past several decades. The growth in Chinese imports occurred primarily because of Chinas internal reforms and their admission to the World Trade Organization. However, the impact of growing Chinese imports fell unevenly across the UK. Figure 2 maps a measure of Chinese imports per worker by local labour markets (measured using the ONS Travel to Work Areas) across Great Britain. Local economies in the north west of England were hit harder by Chinese imports than areas in the south east. Areas hit hardest by the Chinese imports experienced decreases in manufacturing employment and average wages.

Using an original 2017 survey representative of the British population and a measure of Chinese imports to capture localised economic shocks, we estimate the effect of economic threat on authoritarian values. We find that individuals living in regions where the local labour market was more substantially affected by imports from China have significantly more authoritarian values. Our estimates are robust to the inclusion of a wide variety of demographic variables and controls for immigration patterns.

Our findings help to explain why individuals more exposed to globalisation (as measured by Chinese imports) were more likely to vote Leave in the UKs 2016 referendum on EU membership a previously reported observation. We demonstrate that the China trade shock engendered the adoption of more authoritarian values. These values in turn help account for the opinions and behaviours of Leave voters who in seeking order and conformity desired to reduce immigration and take back control of policymaking. Understanding where authoritarian values come from sheds new light on the Brexit vote, a decision that fundamentally reshaped the UKs relationship with the EU and indeed the world.

Cultural values can be a consequence of economic change. Thinking of cultural and economic explanations as disjoint accounts invites misinterpretation of the role that these forces play in explaining pivotal events like Brexit.

___________________

Note: the above draws on the authors published work in Comparative Political Studies.

About the Authors

Cameron Ballard-Rosa is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Mashail Malik is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at Harvard University.

Stephanie Rickard is Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics.

Kenneth Scheve is Dean Acheson Professor of Political Science & Global Affairs at Yale University.

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash.

Original post:

Local economic shocks from globalisation are linked to an increase in authoritarian values and the Brexit vote - British Politics and Policy at LSE

Frozen food shop Iceland has paused further expansion in the Republic as the business embeds changes brought about by Brexit, according to its latest financial report.

The UK retailer operates 27 shops here. New accounts show that the businessbenefited from a return to home cooking duringthe Covid-19lockdownsas revenues increased by 9 per cent to 66 million.

According to the accounts, filed by Iceland Stores Ireland Ltd for the 12 months to the end of March 26th this year, thecompany reduced itspretax losses by 27 per cent from 4.47 million to 3.25 million.

Under the heading of future developments,thereport said the company was looking to embed the changes required post-Brexitover thecoming year before expanding the business further.

The accounts note that the year was a challenging one for thecompany, with meetingthe challenges oftheCovid-19 pandemicandseizing the opportunities created by the changes in consumerlifestyle and purchasing behaviour. Growth in the grocery market was driven byheightenedconsumer demand for home cooking rather than food to go or eating out. Thisstructuralshift reflected the increase in home cooking and reduced commuting,together with the loss of out of home eatingopportunities for much of theyear due to the series ofCovid-19 nationallockdownsand tiered restrictions, the accounts said.

Underscoring the positive impact on sales brought about by theCovid-19 pandemic, the report said that Icelands supply chaindealtsuccessfully with the challenge posed byCovid-19during a surge in demandunprecedented outside the well-planned Christmas peak.

Theaccounts also said that it incurredsubstantialCovid-related costs and the businesss exceptional cost of sales last year totalled 455,000.

The companysadjusted earningsbefore interest, tax,depreciation andamortisation(ebitda) last year totalled 922,000 compared to a deficit of 1.2 million inthe prior year , a positive swing of 2.1 million. Numbers employed remained at 438 as staff costs increased from 7.63 million to 7.84 million. Non-cash depreciation costs totalled 3.72 million.

See the article here:

Iceland freezes expansion due to Brexit impact - The Irish Times

Having dropped the most since June, GBP/USD remains on the back foot around 1.3630, battling the key technical support, during Fridays Asian session. In doing so, the cable pair justifies the recently easy consumer confidence figures while also bearish the burden of the Brexit and coronavirus jitters.

The GfK Consumer Confidence for August matched the -8 forecast versus -7 prior. British consumer morale cooled a little after touching its highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Reuters after the release.

Elsewhere, Brexit is blamed for the chicken woes in the UK and the drain of bankers from Britain to the European Union (EU). The Financial Times (FT) said, UK chicken producers say post-Brexit immigration restrictions are to blame for staff shortages that have forced them to reduce supply, causing restaurants including KFC and Nandos to cut menu items and close branches. On the other hand, Reuters said, Nearly a hundred highly paid bankers left Britain ahead of its departure from the European Union, the bloc's banking watchdog said on Wednesday, the latest confirmation of how Brexit has reshaped Europe's financial sector and its tax base.

Talking about the coronavirus woes, the UK reported 36,572 new cases and 113 covid-led deaths on Thursday. The British policymakers are concerned about the Delta covid variant break and push hard for booster shots, not to forget vaccines for 12-17 years old. Another reason for the same could be the British research showing that the current vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca are less effective to tame the virus strain.

On a broader from Australia reported the record daily jump in infections while New Zealands virus cases sneak into Wellington of late. Furthermore, cases in China and the US ease a bit but remain at worrisome levels.

The virus jitters and Brexit fears put a safe-haven bid under the US dollar, fueling the US Dollar Index (DXY) near the yearly top. Also favoring the greenback is the tapering tantrum.

Hence, the GBP/USD prices may remain on the bearish trajectory unless any positive developments rollout from either the UK or the US that enriches market sentiment, which is less likely.

Looking forward, a lack of major data/events may offer a little impetus and keep the risk catalysts on the drivers seat. However, UK Retail Sales for July, expected to ease from 9.7% to 6.0% YoY, will be important to watch.

GBP/USD bears attack the yearly support line near 1.3630 but clear trading below 200-DMA, around 1.3795, keeps the sellers hopeful to refresh 2021 low under 1.3572.

Link:

GBP/USD renews monthly bottom above 1.3600 on Brexit, covid woes ahead of UK Retail Sales - FXStreet

The Protocol, part of the Brexit divorce deal agreed by the UK and Brussels, effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.This means checks on goods being sent from Great Britain into the single market in some cases could result in prohibitions on certain products that do not comply with EU rules.

Following unionist anger over the Protocol at Stormont, Brexit minister Lord Frost put forward plans to renegotiate the Protocol, which he set out in a Command Paper last month.

Negotiations are currently ongoing with the EU to find a solution.

But this publication has learnt UK ministers are considering another extension as the September 30 deadline to the current extension runs out, sparking a potential "sausage war".

After October 1, if the EU does not agree to a further grace period, then shipments of chilled meats including sausages into Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the United Kingdom will be restricted.

The UK initially asked for a 12-week extension to the grace period on animal products which includes chilled meats such as sausages, burgers and mince in June, which was granted by the European Commission.

A Whitehall source familiar with the ongoing negotiations over the protocol said the option for another extension wasnt ruled out.

The source added to Express.co.uk: We are aware of the upcoming deadline so are looking at various options.

We have made clear the Northern Ireland Protocol is not working in its current form and are working in partnership with the European Commission to hopefully make changes that remain consistent with the Good Friday Agreement.

READ MORE:Alba pledges legal action to force IndyRef2

But the European Commission, who have remained silent on Lord Frosts plans to renegotiate the Protocol, are understood to have some concerns about a potential extension.

A Brussels source added: We are having constructive discussions with the UK.

Read more here:

It's NOT working! Fresh Brexit battle looms as Frost set to ignite new row over hated deal - Daily Express

Brexit-backing newspaper the Express has sent a plea to Lord Frost and Ursula von der Leyen to reopen the Brexit deal after it was revealed UK exporters are getting caught up in a litany of red tape.

Businesses in the UK could face up to 270 million new checks following the countrys departure from the European Union, leading many to reconsider how sustainable exporting to the continent could be.

The British Chambers of Commerce warned of a gathering storm in the UK export market which threatened to derail the long-term ambitions for a truly global Britain.

Shevaun Haviland, director-general of the business group, urged Brexit minister Lord Frost and the EUs vice president Maros Sefcovic to look at the issue personally.

She added: Small and medium-sized exporters have found themselves consumed in an avalanche of red tape and blockaded by disruption, to the degree that many have simply been forced to cease selling to EU-based customers altogether.

That is why we are calling on senior Ministers in the UK Government, as well as EU officials, to step in and urgently examine the issues that are currently plaguing SME [small and medium-sized] exporters.

Mike Cherry, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, added: We urgently need to see policymakers on both sides of the Channel assessing ways to ease the admin burden for small exporters, which are often among our most innovative and profitable firms.

Exporters started experiencing problems in January with Scottish fishermen first experiencing delays in getting their fresh fish to the markets of mainland Europe, the Express reported.

These fears were reflected in The British Chambers Trade Confidence Outlook for Q1 of 2021.

The percentage of businesses reporting increased export sales fell to 20 per cent, down from 22 per cent in Q4 2020.

The new post-Brexit regulations, which were approved by the UK Government, will mean companies importing goods into the UK will require Export Health Certificates (EHC) and various additional consignment paperwork.

HMRC data reveals 270 million additional customs declarations are expected to be filled out as a result of the additional checks.

Related: Flashback: To when foreign secretaries DID resign over diplomatic failures

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Express pleas with Lord Frost to reopen Brexit deal due to complex red tape - The London Economic

As the clocks turned 2020 into 2021 the UK left the European Union after 47 years. The decision divided the country, and businesses were forced to adapt to - and comply with new regulations. Certain industries were clearly more affected than others, and businesses which had some sort ofinternationalpresence benefited from a smoother transitioning period.

Players in the payments industry were perhaps one of those lucky ones, due to the nature ofinternationalcapabilities inherent in the sector and its continued ability to stay agile.

A key consideration and a massive point of debate was whether London would remain the centre of the financial services sector, and if not, what would the repercussions be for businesses.

For the payments sector, while the UKs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has instituted a Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR) enabling registered European payments firms to continue operating in the UK without relicensing through 2024, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been more robust, spreading a sense of uncertainty across the board.

It wasnt just new regulations which threw many businesses, but the issue of successfully managing and retaining aninternationalworkforce. As companies were forced to adapt, the financial industry saw the underdogs leading the charge, as smaller firms proved to be more agile and resilient to the ever changingBrexitlandscape.

Friend or foe?Brexitand the payments industry

BeforeBrexit, the payments sector was seamless, cross-border and collaborative. Like many industries, it was easy to access multiple markets as trading wasnt so limited. In the past seven months, the imposed regulatory changes have made everything more challenging and forced the industry to focus on digitalising its offering and cementing itsinternationalcapabilities in order to stay competitive and futureproof itself.

But the initial stages were far from easy, and in the early months ofBrexit, many industry players reported of IBAN discrimination being a major issue as a number of companies across Europe began to refuse Euro account bank details if they contained the country code GB.

As a result ofBrexit, sending a payment to Eurozone countries resulted in additional charges. Whilst the fee is nominal, it means that payments can be short of the required full amount being sent. This new imposed fee has caused an unnecessary amount of disruption and operations teams have been tasked with managing flows into different accounts to mitigate unforeseen costs arising.

Starting Global, Thriving Global

In a bid to mitigate the impact ofBrexitand futureproof our growth, we knew early on that ourinternationalcapabilities would help us navigate this challenging time. As a bespoke payments and FX technology platform, we were programmed to integrate seamlessly with global data fields across multiple banking partners. We also know which global industries benefit from our digital cash management system and how we can take that into new markets - so really the missing piece is local permissions to enter new jurisdictions. It was therefore a no-brainer for us to really focus on bringing our pre-establishedinternationaloperations to the forefront and help the teams mitigate any disruption.

Brexithas not changed the need for cross border payments, rather only the operational functionality and regulatory requirements. Having established experts in multiple fields reduces the time spent by management members imposing new legislations and regulations - many of which are interpreted at each local regulators absolute discretion.

Tips to help your business guarantee the bestinternationalmove post-Brexit:

More:

Starting Global: Why international business presence is the key to post Brexit success - Finextra

I

F youd been asleep for the last two years and were suddenly awakened in the City of London, you could be forgiven for thinking it had suffered an apocalypse.

Cornhill is empty. On the steps of the Royal Exchange building sit only pigeons. Lombard, normally jammed with cabs full of bankers, hosts the odd bicyclist.

Blimey, you might think, all those predictions about what Brexit would do to our financial centre were right.

In reality, almost no one has left, at least no one we care about. They are just at home, for now, poised to resume business as normal. (Deal making, money raising has continued with impressive normality anyway).

The Times today reports figures from the European Banking Authority which puts the number of top bankers that have left London at 95. Not 95,000. Not even 9500.

95. Perhaps we should ring them up individually and ask if they are ready to come home yet.

London still has most of the big hitters and remains Europes biggest financial centre by some way.

The folk predicting the City of Londons demise post Brexit a curious alliance of centrist remainers, The Guardian, and other people who dont know what they are talking about look embarrassingly wrong.

Here is a flashback to The Groan in December 2017:

City firms plan to move 10,500 jobs out of the UK on day one ofBrexit, with Dublin and Frankfurt the financial centres most likely to benefit from the UKs departure from the EU.

The paper was quoting accountants at EY that 10,500 already being a reduction on previous guesses of 12,500.

Some estimates were far more serious than that.

Of course, some jobs have moved. But they always do it is a dynamic world, and for some basic functions involving share administration or fund allocation, it has been cheaper and as easy to do that from Dublin or Frankfurt for ages.

City old timer David Buik of Aquis Exchange says: Predictions that post Brexit, 100k banking personnel would leave for the EU was wholesale exaggeration. 75 years of infrastructure with the best lawyers and accountants plus the English language endorses the belief that London will remain at the pinnacle of financial society.

The idea that there would be a mass exodus by bankers was always insanity. Yes, Euro based trading was always likely to be repatriated, and so it was in a heartbeat. For foreign exchange, the finance of foreign trade, M&A activity and derivatives, apart from New York, there is only one financial metropolis - London. The centre of the time zone, the English language, deal making prowess and 75 years of infrastructure makes London an irresistible centre.

Back in February there was a kerfuffle when Amsterdam, temporarily, surpassed London as the biggest share trading hub in Europe.

This was symbolic only, it meant little for jobs or taxes, and the stock market is just a fraction of what the City is about anyway.

When London regained its status from Amsterdam shortly thereafter, the embarrassingly wrong crowd somehow failed to notice.

Russ Mould at AJ Bell says: Perhaps COVID has wrecked more than a few plans to move staff around, but so far the doom-laden predictions are not coming true. Firms are focusing on keeping the talent they have, and threatening to shunt them around Europe might not be a good way of doing that. People can have good reasons for wanting to stay where they are, such as children and their education, as well as their own professional and social networks, let alone the prospect of different (higher) tax regimes.

The truth is that London is just better at this stuff than almost anywhere else. Moreover, Amsterdam and the rest know it.

Think of them as Margate, annually making a claim to get our holiday pounds over the charms of Majorca. They dont actually expect us all to show up.

And they couldnt cope if we did.

Here is the other thing about the City and London in general, as compared to say Frankfurt, a village of a town that has a nice book fair but may otherwise lack for the excitement your hard swinging financier regards as his due.

You dont have to like the people who work in the City to see that what they do is vital to the UKs prospects.

And in any case, they represent a far broader cross section of the human race than might be supposed from the outside. Most of life is here.

The City has had a good crisis. And it is just about to get even better. Watch.

More:

Apocalypse? No. The City of London has defied talk of a Brexit exodus - Evening Standard

This article is an on-site version of our Brexit Briefing newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every week

It is a stock phrase of Boris Johnsons government that it seeks to deliver on the opportunities of Brexit. Indeed, barely a press release or a government statement passes without this appearing somewhere or other.

But five years after the UK voted to leave the EU, those opportunities remain stubbornly ill-defined, beyond a broad commitment to notions of lighter-touch, nimble regulation in key areas of UK economic life, such as global finance and the life sciences.

The obvious difficulty with the UK exercising its new regulatory sovereignty to create its own rules however nimble is that from the perspective of global industries such as pharmaceuticals and medical device makers, the UK amounts to only a few per cent of the total global marketplace.

This is why industry has raised concerns, as noted in a previous edition of Brexit Briefing, over the implementation of the new UKCA quality assurance mark that essentially duplicates the EUs existing CE mark regime, adding UK-specific cost and complexity for no obvious gain.

This is particularly true for fields such as medical devices, which have to be sold globally to be commercially viable, and why UK industry and experts recently warned over risks of divergence for divergence sake.

The risks of failure in the regulatory sphere are political as well as commercial. If the UK, which represents just 4 per cent of the global market in medical devices, gets the future regulatory environment wrong, it will mean fewer products being available to NHS patients because industry licenses them first for the bigger participants, notably the EU and the US.

But while there can be no ignoring the limiting factor of size, regulatory experts argue that there is potential for the UK to seize a significant Brexit dividend by regulating better, and indeed could become a truly world-beating force in what is called regulatory science.

The opportunity is not so much cutting regulation slashing Brussels red tape in the popular Brexit narrative but in fundamentally changing the way in which the UK approaches and manages regulation.

The governments TIGRR report on post-Brexit regulatory reform led by arch-Brexiter Sir Iain Duncan Smith alluded to this, but was still fundamentally based on the notion that regulators and their regulations are obstructive rather than enabling in nature.

Yet the Covid-19 pandemic has actually been a public showcase for strong and clever regulators, making sure that useless or dangerous ventilators and PPE did not enter hospital wards; fast-tracking coronavirus vaccines and keeping unreliable Covid tests from the market.

The real opportunity of Brexit, therefore, says Professor Christopher Hodges, a global regulatory expert at the University of Oxford, is to fundamentally change the thinking behind the way the UK regulates, releasing potential in the process.

The step-change, he argues, must be away from a rules and sanctions-based approach typified in the EUs unwieldy new Medical Devices Directive, which is causing massive bureaucratic headaches in the industry, forcing businesses to take products off the market to a more trust-based approach that is built around all participants in the process working towards common goals.

Hodges cites the airline industry as an example of where the common endeavour of keeping planes safely in the air achieves the shared outcome that both operators, regulators and indeed passengers are looking for. From the air traffic controller, to the worker out on the tarmac shutting the planes luggage compartment, it is the common endeavour, not fines and sanctions, that ultimately achieves safety.

The TIGRR report missed a big trick, says Hodges. The EU has a structural problem because it needs to harmonise rules across 27 countries. But if the UK modernises its whole approach based on ethics, trust, evidence, problem-solving and putting an ethical code at [the] centre rather than a load of rules, then it can do extraordinarily well.

These ideas that now underpin new regulatory science and which are already featured in a lot of new corporate thinking on incentivising productivity and performance might seem abstract, but the ultimate aim is to make a difference on the ground for UK plc.

In the medical devices field, where 80 per cent of UK companies are SMEs, that difference potentially means clearer lines to market, a faster and cheaper approvals process and with the UK becoming an increasingly attractive test-bed for new products. Business and patients both benefit.

Work is going on to advance these ideas that overturn centuries of a carrot and stick approach to getting the best out of people and the systems they operate in, but will require collective buy-in from government, industry and regulators themselves.

Bids are being prepared to create a UK version of the Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSIs) that have been created in the US by the Food and Drug Administration to drive better, smarter regulation.

The Birmingham Health Partners (BHP) cluster, which brings together academics from the University of Birmingham and local NHS Trusts released a report in July 2020 on the role of advancing regulatory science in the healthcare sector.

Professor Melanie Calvert, director of BHPs Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation, says that the UKs departure from the EU provides a clear opportunity to capitalise on the kind of flexibility demonstrated through the coronavirus pandemic.

But to be globally competitive, she warns, the UK needs to invest in regulatory science in order to capitalise on the coming wave of inventions that will flow from digital tools, robotics, artificial intelligence and new therapeutic approaches, such as cell and gene therapy.

Developing a national strategy for UK regulatory science will allow us to be both globally competitive and internationally collaborative. Enabling groundbreaking products developed here to be efficiently deployed around the world will not be straightforward, and finding the best outcomes will rely on forward-thinking UK innovation in regulatory science, she says.

In short, there is a regulatory dividend to be won here, but its not quite as commonly conceived, and will require investment (not 25 per cent staff cuts to the medicines and medical devices regulator as the Financial Times reported last week) and a collective effort among officials, regulators and business on how we do things.

Thank you to everyone who has already filled in our reader survey. We would love to know what you think of Brexit Briefing, so would really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it in. That way we can ensure that the newsletter remains an essential weekly read.

Encouraging signs of Covid recovery continued this week with the latest increase in job numbers pushing the headline unemployment rate down to 4.7 per cent. The recruitment market is exceptionally buoyant, according to staffing agencies.

But there remains a Brexit sting in the tail for many businesses including hospitality and logistics, which have experienced recruitment difficulties caused in part by the ending of free movement and the governments bar on low-skilled immigration.

The government wants business to adjust and argues that the 5.6m EU workers who applied for settled status after Brexit should give sufficient flexibility to industry as that process takes place.

But with Covid restrictions only now lifting, it is too early to say how many EU workers will come back to jobs in the UK. Many, like truck drivers, may have discovered rival temptations during the lockdown, such as working closer to family and, in many EU countries, not having to drive on Sundays.

Business groups continue to call for short-term visa solutions to deal with the shortages, but the government is ideologically wedded to this new policy and is apparently loath to set precedents by flexing.

But as the ONS Labour Market statistics dropped this week, thats what business said it needed.

Elizabeth de Jong, policy director at Logistics UK, said the industry needed a short-term flexible solution on immigration to help manage the current shortages while new recruits are trained to enter the sector.

While SurenThiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, warned that a deep-rooted squeeze on labour supply from the impact of Covid and Brexit risks crimping economic activity. A more flexible immigration system is also needed to ensure that firms get access to the workers they need, he said.

No sign, as yet, of that memo having reached the Home Office.

And, finally, three unmissable Brexit stories

Poultry producers are blaming a run on chickens in the UK on post-Brexit immigration rules, saying the struggle to hire workers risks irrecoverable food shortages. One of Britains largest chicken producers, 2 Sisters Food Group, said on Wednesday that a chronic shortage of staff to process birds had left clients, including Nandos, short of meat. While the workforce has been affected by coronavirus, post-Brexit immigration restrictions have had a more severe effect, according to 2 Sisters.

Britain-Ireland freight flows have fallen 29 per cent since the Brexit deal came into force in January, according to an official report. Amid post-Brexit trade frictions, Irish businesses have opted to send goods directly into Europe to avoid the risk of UK border delays. Britains share of ro-ro traffic with Ireland, meanwhile, has fallen from 84 per cent two years ago to 67 per cent in the second quarter of this year.

And one EU story for the road. If the German Greens gain power in Septembers federal election, expect a sharp break from the policies of outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel. In a rare interview with the foreign press, Annalena Baerbock, the Green candidate for chancellor, called for looser limits on EU member states budget deficits and debt levels. Baerbock has also been tougher on foreign policy than her main rivals, suggesting that the EU imposes import duties on state-backed Chinese companies and accusing the Merkel government of being soft on Moscow.

My colleague, Philip Stafford, will be your Briefing host next week. Hell be writing about the UKs unwillingness to repeal the banker bonus legislation even though nobody likes it. You wont want to miss that.

Ill be back in a fortnight and would still very much appreciate your feedback on this newsletter and your stories if you work in an industry that has been affected by the UKs departure from the EUs single market and custom union. Contact me at[emailprotected].

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The Real Opportunity Of Brexit - Todayuknews - Todayuknews