It’s official. UK manufacturing is in recession. If the UK leaves the EU with anything less than single market and customs union membership, it’s game over for manufacturing in Britain. And the knock-on consequences* for the British economy are catastrophic. Brexit will impact every person in the UK who depends on manufactured goods as a component, as part of a supply chain, or as a finished product. My business relies on all three of these, and a no-deal/hard Brexit means the prospects for its survival, as for many others, are not good. Using my business and one of the more popular products we sell as an example, we might be able to illustrate the scale of the wider problem. Obviously, I don’t want to cause problems for any of my suppliers, so I’ll simply refer to this product as Product X (PX for brevity). PX is a component used in many cosmetic formulations. My supplier is based in England, and they manufacture the product there using many other components – components not available in the UK, which …

I used to write every day, usually in the morning and always after a pot of strong coffee and a cigarette or two. Nothing quite fired up my brain as well, and since I’ve given up smoking and limit my coffee to one cup a day, my melty grey matter doesn’t work as well as I’d like. So I rarely write. In fact, I don’t do a lot of stuff. I don’t read books, I don’t play guitar, I don’t make soap. I don’t do many things I used to enjoy because for over two years, my sodden headspace has been occupied with the worry that Brexit will cost me and my family everything. My attention span is short. It’s hard knowing our current way of life will soon be over. It distracts from everything. For awhile I comforted myself with the thought that someone would see sense and stop this madness, but now we’re actually talking about stockpiling food and medicine – all because a slim majority voted for self harm in a rigged …