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Another UK business moves to Europe - as half its sales are wiped out post Brexit. /1 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/14/as-half-its-sales-are-wiped-out-silk-firm-joins-exodus-to-europe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Meanwhile ROI businesses pick up trade within Ireland and NI because of Boris Johnson’s GB-NI trade barrier. /2 https://amp.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-bonus-for-mash-direct-as-it-does-deal-with-m-and-s-in-republic-40085709.html
We’re watching the disintegration of large parts of our economy, and we’re only 6 weeks into this. Yet we’re barely having a conversation about it - a wall of silence in Parliament, much of the media content to repeat Govt spin about tunnels and trade fantasies. /3
If any other Tory policy were taking a sledgehammer to the economy, jobs, businesses - and at the same time destabilising peace in NI - Labour would be all over it. Because it’s called Brexit there’s all but silence. Labour needs to find a way to /4
hold the Tories to account for Brexit damage, easily done when there’s the valid option of accepting Brexit is done but arguing it’s been done badly and needs urgent remedy. /5
I guess their bind is that they don’t want to be drawn into conversations around how they’d fix it - which would inevitably mean closer alignment and accusations of rule taking. /6
But the reality is we’re already rule takers. We diverge and we lose one of the few things saved in the deal - tariff and quota free trade. Divergence would be insane. /7
And try telling a musician, financial services, hauliers, exporters and importers etc that we’ve ‘taken back control’. Control once belonged to all of us - now it’s the Govt’s alone and they’re not sharing. /8
The very least we should expect as citizens is that the decimation of our economy and our loss of rights and control be debated in Parliament and an alternative offered. Instead we have an air of unreality as permanent harm increases by the day. /8
