Category Archives: Brexit

The report titled Impact of Brexit and Covid-19 on the UK Fashion & Textiles Technology Ecosystem proposes five key recommendations to support the growth and prosperity of the UK Fashion, Textile and Technology industry.

The report was published collectively by the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT) led by the University of the Arts London and the Future Fashion Factory (FFF) led by the University of Leeds with the UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT)s Adam Mansell as chair of the project.

The report builds on a previous study published in July 2021, titled Mapping the UK Fashion Textiles Technology Ecosystem, which revealed the main challenges the UK fashion, textiles and technology (FTT) industry would face in the next three to five years. The challenges included changes in consumer spending; funding, tax and business rates; trade policies and Brexit; and a shortage of FTT skills.

Mansell explains the new report highlights many of the ongoing issues faced by the UK fashion and textile industry, particularly those SMEs and micro businesses that makeup over 80% of the industry.

However, he is quick to point out that the report also marks the resilience and adaptability of UK fashion and textile companies when faced with challenges such as Brexit and Covid.

Mansell describes the UKs departure from the EU the biggest change in the global trading environment in decades.

He says: With the EU accounting for 75% of the UKs fashion and textile exports and over 30% of the sectors imports, the implications of the change in relationship was always going to be hugely significant.

Despite the rhetoric, the UK EU Trade Continuity Agreement was not the simplest trade deal ever negotiated. The reality is (and was always going to be) a new trading relationship with significant administrative burdens, a large increase in costs and more limited movement of people and products.

He suggests confidence in the UK as a supply base has fallen sharply with many European companies declining to do business with UK brands due to the new trading difficulties.

Mansell explains: These difficulties are likely to increase with the development of the EUs ambitious and comprehensive textile sustainability strategy. The strategy will see a dramatic increase in legislation requiring better monitoring and reporting for all fashion and textiles sold in the EU and will apply to UK suppliers.

This research was a collaborative project with support and funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), BFTT, FFF, ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (ESRC IAA), Leeds University Business School (LUBS), UAL LCF Fashion Business School, UKFT and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Last month the UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) and the British Fashion Council (BFC) said they were collaborating as co-chairs on a new government-funded circular fashion programme, which aims to facilitate and lead the development of a circular fashion ecosystem within the UK.

UKFT is also spearheading a 4m ($5.06m) project to develop and pilot an automated sorting and pre-processing plant for waste textiles (ATSP) in a bid to divert tonnes of waste from landfill each year.

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Five ways UK fashion industry can grow post-Brexit, Covid - just-style.com

For many Britons, Brexit was a one-off event involving a vote in the 2016 referendum, but for UK exporters such as Brandauer, a Birmingham-based specialised components maker, trading outside the EU has been a journey of continuous adaptation.

From handling German value added tax to mastering the intricacies of six-digit EU customs codes, Brandauer chief executive Rowan Crozier said his small company has managed to retain its EU customers thanks to precision components used in a wide range of industries including carmakers, construction and pharmaceuticals.

But Crozier is aware that in many ways Brandaeurs Brexit journey is only just beginning as the EU introduces rules on carbon border taxes, plastic waste management and supply chain monitoring.

This means EU rules are starting to diverge from UK equivalents. Divergence is an ongoing headache, he said.

Trade and industry experts warn the rising volume of future EU regulations is leading to Brexit 2.0 as the 27-nation bloc introduces rules that even when they are mirrored by the UK create fresh barriers to trade.

Were getting new [EU] legislation continuously, said Fergus McReynolds, director of EU affairs at the manufacturers trade body Make UK. So as the UK stays static, youre having to treat the EU and the UK as two completely different markets from a regulatory perspective.

McReynolds said Make UKs members are focused on three main EU regulations: the blocs upcoming carbon border tax, implementation of plastic packaging rules and draft supply chain due diligence laws being discussed by member states.

The introduction of the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism is likely to have a significant effect on companies trading with the bloc, according to George Riddell, director of trade strategy at consultancy EY, who is helping UK businesses that export to the EU prepare for the measure.

From October this year EU companies will have to compile reports on the carbon emissions attached to some imported goods, including steel, aluminium and fertilisers, with businesses having to buy certificates to cover emissions embedded in products from 2026.

The paperwork and costs associated with the carbon tax will land on UK companies who supply components to EU businesses covered by the regulation which affects products as prosaic as nuts and bolts. As a result, some of these UK companies will be more difficult to trade with for EU businesses.

From 2026, there will be cost pressures factored into where you choose your suppliers, said Riddell.

The British government is consulting industry over introducing a UK version of the EU carbon border tax, but without legally binding linkage between the two schemes, domestic businesses will still need to demonstrate compliance with the blocs rules, said William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce.

[The EU carbon border adjustment mechanism], packaging legislation, supply chain legislation are becoming an issue for UK companies on how they best order their compliance without incurring huge additional costs, he added.

British MPs were warned at a meeting in Brussels this month that they needed to track EU legislation to help UK companies respond.

Nathalie Loiseau, a senior French MEP who co-chairs the UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly, said the two sides have started to diverge.

There is lots of legislation going through at the EU level...and we need to be aware of the impact, she said. Businesses on both sides of the Channel are saying the same thing: we want high standards and we do not want to diverge too much.

The issue affects services companies too. Accountants MHA warned that EU tax rules for virtual services will change in January 2025, meaning British businesses providing online facilities to consumers will have to pay VAT where the customer resides rather than in the UK, as now.

Sue Rathmell, partner at MHA, said: UK businesses providing virtual [business to consumer] services to the EU, such as webinars, online conferences or advertising software, require swift input from [HM Revenue & Customs] in response to the EUs intention to overhaul place of supply rules from January 2025.

McReynolds said one of the biggest challenges for business was the widely differing approaches of individual EU member states to implementing regulations such as the blocs requirement to recycle plastic packaging.

Some countries, including Spain, apply rules more strictly than others, with some EU businesses now insisting that UK companies provide proof that plastic components of manufactured goods also comply with the regulations, he added.

When the UK was an EU member, such rules were transposed automatically on to the British statute book and companies were presumed to have complied for the entire single market.

As a non-member, that presumption of compliance has been removed. Post-Brexit British firms have to comply with the domestic interpretation of EU directives of 27 different regulatory regimes, said McReynolds.

Both Make UK and British Chambers of Commerce say that now the UK is no longer automatically transposing EU law, the British government needs to do more to assess the impact of the blocs future regulations, as well as using the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the two sides to co-ordinate better with Brussels.

The UK Department for Business and Trade said the agreement was opening up new opportunities for British businesses in the EU.

We will continue to assess the impact new EU laws could have on our trade interests, as we do with other trading partners.

However, Bain said there needed to be much broader discussion about regulatory developments on both sides. We need to get a lot better at this. Everybody has to up their game.

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Make UK has called for the government to create a central register of impending EU laws and to help British companies with analysis of what they mean for business.

The alternative for British companies is a repeat of the chaotic and costly learning curve that followed the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement in January 2021, barely a week after the eleventh-hour deal was struck between the UK and the EU, said Crozier.

Based on past form, he was not optimistic. Weve been flying blind all the way through as manufacturers. We didnt know what Brexit we were going to get until the very last minute, and Ive no faith that it wont be the same scenario all over again.

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British companies start to grapple with 'Brexit 2.0' - Financial Times

King criticised handling of negotiations and said there was no need for the atmosphere around them to be so bad

A former governor of the Bank of England has described the UK's handling of Brexit as a "shambles".

Mervyn King, who was the governor between 2003 and 2013, criticised the inability of the political classes to choose a version of Brexit to follow and said the atmosphere around negotiations was unnecessarily bad.

"I think its been a shambles since 2016," Kingtold LBC radio in the UK. "Parliament unable to decide which of eight or nine versions of Brexit, the failure to negotiate properly."

King, who previously advocated for a no deal arrangement with the European Union, added: "If you rule out no deal you havent got any negotiating position at all."

He said the UK should have made a "pro-European case for Brexit" and offered all EU residents in the UK automatic rights of residence, rather than making it part of a negotiation.

"We could have done more to try to ensure we had access to education and research opportunities in Europe," he added. "The atmosphere that was created in negotiations with Europe turned out to be very bad, there was no need for the atmosphere to be that bad."

However, King felt disagreements between the UK and the European Union would have continued to rankle had Brexit not happened.

"I dont think we would have wanted to follow down the path which the European Central Bank and European Commission want to take them, which is towards a fiscal and political union," he said. "I think it would have led to an even greater debate at home about 'why should our tax and spending policy in Britain be determined by the rest of Europe?'"

King was also asked about former Prime Minister Liz Truss's brief period in power.

"I do think we got a bit hysterical," he said. "I can understand to some extent why and that the government appeared to be hell bent on cutting taxes without any proper analysis or framework, jettisoning the way government was being organised.

"I understand that, but I don't think the economic consequences were that bad. And frankly, they've gone away, they've disappeared now.

"What we should boast about as a country is that we had a government that we didn't think was doing very well, it lasted 44 days, we got rid of it, and no-one got hurt."

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Ex-Bank of England governor describes handling of Brexit as a shambles - Euronews

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Brexit and austerity left UK badly prepared for pandemic, inquiry told - Financial Times

Brexit is partly to be blamed for UK's feeble pandemic preparation, the COVID inquiry was told on its opening day.

The UKs COVID inquiry has heard that Brexit weakened the country's ability to respond well to the pandemic.

Counsel for the COVID inquiry Hugo Keith KC said Brexit-related planning and administrative processes hindered the countrys preparedness to tackle the pandemic, on the opening day of the hearings.

The independent inquiry chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett started its first module on Tuesday and will involve six weeks of public hearings until 20 July.

The Pandemic hit the UK just as it was leaving the EU, Keith said. It is clear that such planning, from 2018 onwards, crowded out and prevented some or perhaps a majority of the improvements that central government itself understood were required to be made to resilience planning and preparedness.

Putting the governments Operation Yellowhammer into scrutiny, he said the enormous amount of work weakened the capacity to devise a pandemic response.

The proposed operation was put into place in case of a unilateral exit from the EU if a withdrawal agreement was not reached.

The resource-intensive planning was done to address the consequences of a possible no-deal exit, the UK government had devised a plan to aid food and medical supplies, travel and transport, and business.

Did the attention therefore paid to the risks of a no-deal exit drain the resources and capacity that should have been continuing the fight against the next pandemic? Keith questioned.

The evidence so far puts the governments focus on Brexit rather than preparing the UK for civil emergency as the main factor behind one of the highest death tolls in the world, Keith claimed.

The inquiry is yet to hear evidence from members of the public, which investigators say will help them better understand the effects of the virus and the response of authorities.

These answers will be put into themed reports that will serve as evidence.

Public hearings will be concluded by 2026, putting every aspect of the pandemic under the microscope.

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Brexit 'made UK vulnerable to COVID', inquiry told - Euronews

The waiters can sometimes be a little surly. That holiday villa you booked in the Loire may not always be as desirable as it looked in the pictures. And you can never be entirely sure which side they will be on in a major war. Still, despite occasional inconsistencies, there is one thing you could always rely on the French for. They will insist forever that leaving the EU has been a catastrophe for the British economy, and by far the stupidest decision any major country has ever made.

But hold on. Whats this? In a note this morning BNP Paribas, a bank right at the heart of the French establishment, finally admitted Brexit had not made much difference. At this rate, perhaps even the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will be arguing it was all fairly irrelevant all along.

Seven years after the vote, perhaps the wounds are finally starting to heal

Written by Stephane Colliac, a senior economist with Frances largest financial institution, the note does not exactly break new ground. But it does take an objective look at the data since the 2016 referendum and crunch some of the numbers on what has happened since to foreign investment, labour movements, and business confidence.

It is generally assumed that Brexit has made the United Kingdom less attractive economically, argues Colliac. However, data on the balance of payments and foreign workers reveal that its not as simple as that.

Indeed not. As the note argues, while the UK has become a less attractive destination for European workers, it has become more attractive to people from other parts of the world. Likewise, despite predictions that leaving the EU would lead to a 22 per cent fall in foreign investment in the 10 years after leaving, it has actually gone up slightly.

These comparisons suggest that Brexit did have a negative impact on the UK economy during the post-referendum period of uncertainty, the note concludes. But this period ended once actual Brexit details had been ironed out. Once a stable post-Brexit framework had been established, the UK got a boost, as direct investments and arrivals of foreign workers from countries outside the European Union (EU) made up the ground lost.

Well, gosh. No one looking at the data would especially disagree. The British economy is doing badly, of course, but so is most of Europe as well. The interesting point, however, is surely this: even BNP Paribas has finally reconciled itself to the view that leaving the EU has not made any significant difference to the British economy one way or the other.

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Seven years after the vote, perhaps the wounds are finally starting to heal, and some common sense is finally starting to prevail. Heck, who knows, perhaps at this rate Alastair Campbell, the Financial Times, the Liberal Democrats, and the rest of the Remain establishment will finally own up to a fact that is obvious to everyone else. The UK has plenty of economic problems. But not being part of the EU is not among them.

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Is France finally changing its tune on Brexit? - The Spectator

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You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many users needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

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UK post-Brexit border charges will increase food prices, warns industry - Financial Times

There were about 12,000 British holiday reps six years ago now there are only about 3,700

ALAMY

The presence of British reps usually young, always enthusiastic at foreign holiday resorts has been a feature of summer breaks since the advent of mass overseas tourism in the 1960s. Skilled at standing at the front of a swaying coach somewhere in the Mediterranean littoral shouting into a microphone, they are relentlessly optimistic by day and keenly oversexed by night. Repping has offered generations of extroverts a place in the sun. In 2017, almost 12,000 Brits worked abroad as liaison officers, sports instructors, nannies and chalet staff, the perks far outweighing the risible pay. This year that will drop to 3,700.

Holiday companies blame post-Brexit bureaucracy, which has made seconding British staff to the EU more complex. Employing Brits has become so

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The Times view on Brexit and summer holiday jobs: Seasons in the Sun - The Times

Carmakers including Stellantis, which owns the UK Vauxhall brand, Ford and Mercedes-Benz have warned about the detrimental effect of the post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Nissan, the U.K.'s largest automaker by volume, has said building cars in Britain may become too expensive after the rules kick in.

While the U.K. is a significant vehicle exporter, it's also a lucrative market for cars made in the EU.

The British government has asked for a delay of the terms under the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement to 2027, by which time battery makers such as Northvolt and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. with sites in Sweden and Germany are set to be up and running at scale.

ACEA, the European auto industry lobby group, estimates that EU-based companies will pay 4.3 billion euros ($4.7 billion) in tariffs and lose sales between 2024 and 2027, director-general Sigrid de Vries told the Financial Times.

Last month, several EU officials with knowledge of the talks said there has been no major breakthrough so far, following comments by U.K. Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch of an imminent resolution.

See more here:

German automakers warn of tough EU talks on post-Brexit EV trade - Automotive News Europe

This issue has in recent months become a real bone of contention between the Scottish Government and the Conservatives at Westminster. And it formed the basis of a Scottish Affairs Committee hearing at Westminster on Monday, on the topic of promoting Scotland internationally.

Secretary of State for Scotland Mr Jack got the ball rolling just ahead of this meeting, by declaring: Our recent report shows that Scotland benefits hugely from the scale and reach of the UK Governments international engagement and influence.

From international security to trade and culture, the UK Governments international departments and agencies are securing the interest of all parts of the United Kingdom.

The assertion that the UK Governments international departments and agencies are securing the interest of all parts of the UK on the trade front is an interesting claim indeed.

Civil servants and other non-elected individuals working in these departments and agencies might well be doing a diligent job on this front on a day-to-day basis, in terms of effort and professionalism.

However, that is surely not the crux of the matter in the context of Mr Jacks remarks.

Mr Jacks assertion might surely be interpreted by many as a declaration that the Conservative Government is doing a good job in the areas he mentions, on behalf of the devolved nations and England.

However, Brexit has hampered in an extraordinary way Scotlands trade with its most important export market, the European Economic Area.

Scotlands electorate was firmly opposed to leaving the European Union, and we should never lose sight of this when we hear the Tories proclaim most boldly that they are somehow acting in everyones interests.

Leaving the EU has, of course, hampered greatly companies the length and breadth of the UK which export to the EEA and import from this huge and important bloc, by ending the frictionless trade from which they benefited so enormously.

For the avoidance of doubt, Brexit has had entirely the opposite effect of securing the interest of Scotland on international trade. The same applies to its effect on the rest of the UK, whatever Mr Jack might want to portray.

Mr Jacks remarks ahead of the committee meeting were therefore, to say the very least, quite remarkable. Some might view them as disingenuous but who knows on that score?

When we got to Mr Jacks actual testimony on Monday, this very much reinforced the impression that one thing the Tories really do not like at all is Scottish Government ministers, when talking to overseas governments and their representatives, mentioninga desire to rejoin the EU.

READ MORE:Ian McConnell: Hapless Brexit Tories try to fob off Scots with cheap biscuits

You wonder occasionally whether this might be partly because the Conservatives, deep down, actually know how foolish and indefensible a decision their hard Brexit was, though it would be a brave person who would bet on the Tories being embarrassed or apologetic about their dire lack of judgement.

Of course, arch-Brexiters are known for their great intolerance of any suggestion of rejoining the EU, even as their folly wreaks havoc on the UK economy and bears down heavily on living standards in these toughest of times.

The UK Governments recent efforts to control Scotlands engagement with other countries have looked very heavy-handed indeed, and it would be difficult to conclude other than that this interference has worrying implications for the economy north of the Border.

Earlier in the spring, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly decided to intervene on Scottish Government ministers engagement with other countries. And it is an issue on which there seems to have been more than a little grandstanding by the Conservatives.

Mr Cleverly wrote a letter on March 31 to heads of UK missions abroad, entitled Working with the Scottish Government internationally and covering new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office guidance on how to manage and support devolved government ministerial visits overseas.

Manage and support constitutes interesting language.

READ MORE:Is Danny Blanchflower or Alister Jack right?

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Angus Robertson wrote to Mr Cleverly on May 1, declaring: I am concerned about the damage the letter and guidance could do to Scottish trade, cultural exchanges and education, and to Scottish interests in general.

READ MORE:Ian McConnell: Amid the detractors mudslinging, some great news for Scotland

Mr Robertson claimed the new guidance is further example of the UK Governments intention to undermine devolution, adding: The UK Governments apparent determination to reduce Scotland to the status of a mere administrative unit and for it to be characterised as such by UK Government diplomats is unacceptable.

Giving the impression of someone on his high horse, Mr Jack declared to the Scottish Affairs Committee on Monday: Consuls of foreign countries have made this point to me directly - that they find it uncomfortable when the Scottish Government ministers raise separation, independence or other foreign affairs issues, constitutional foreign affairs, with themThey understand thatwe are one state, the United Kingdom, and it puts them in an invidious position, and it is not appreciated.

He declared that Mr Robertson had on one occasion described Brexit as a calamity,said it had posed additional challenges for Scotland, not least because Scotland was pro-EU, and that, at a St Andrews Day reception in a European capital had criticised the impact of the EU exit on student exchange programmes to Scotland.

Mr Robertson observed in his May 1 letter: It should be needless to say that Scottish Government ministers would never purport to speak for the UK. The fact that we have very different views on matters such as immigration, asylum and Brexit will be well known to governments overseas, and it would be absurd to think that our such views could be confused with those of the UK Government.

It is surely absolutely the case that the governments of other countries would not confuse the Scottish Governments views on the crucial issues of immigration, asylum and Brexit with the entrenched ideology of the ruling Conservatives on these topics. The Torieshave been very noisy indeed about their views as they have whipped up a populist crescendo in the UK.

The Conservatives'clampdown on immigration from the EEA at a time when the UK is in the grip of an extraordinary skills and labour shortages crisis, their hard Brexit and the attendant destruction of frictionless trade, and their attitudes onasylum could hardly be more different to the Scottish Governments views.

And it is difficult to see what on earth is wrong with Scottish Government ministers stating the reality of Brexit and, for example, the effects on the labour force of the clampdown on immigration, given these matters will often be most pertinent to discussions relating to business and economic affairs.

Why should they have to come across as silent, or worse still somehow lacking in reason, by not stating the reality of the situation, just because it irks the Conservative Government at Westminster?

Read this article:

Ian McConnell: Jack, on high horse over Scottish truths, stirs hornet's nest - HeraldScotland