All posts tagged: brexit

Uncertainty

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It’s been a rough week for my business. On Tuesday, I took the decision to let my organic certification expire. Currently, I’m certified under EU standards, and it’s not clear that this would continue if the UK is no longer a member of the EU. I need these standards to export organic materials to my EU customers, but I have no idea if this will be possible by the end of the month. As my invoice for another year of certification was due this week, I had to make a decision. Not the one I wanted, but what can I do? I was supposed to let my landlord know if I’d be renewing my lease by the first of November last year which shouldn’t have been a problem as the negotiations with the EU were to have finished in October. When that deadline passed with no deal reached, my landlord generously extended my break clause to the first of February. But when that day came and went, he had no choice but to start advertising …

Manufactured Chaos

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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 …

Rambling

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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 …

Blisters and Landmines

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It’s an unfashionable view in the wake of the Brexit campaign, but I tend to trust experts. I like to hear from people who know more than I do about complex issues, because it helps me make an informed decision about my family’s future. I listened to experts during the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, and I voted No. There were questions that were not properly addressed by the Yes side, and those to do with currency, pensions, the economy and – most importantly for me – the EU swayed my decision. I can now see that experts on both sides of the debate could have done a bit better with their accuracy. Through the Spring of 2016, I listened to numerous experts on the subject of the UK’s leaving the EU. Questions about the value of our currency, the impact on business and trade, and the loss of the UK’s influence in the wider world were conclusively answered – there would be serious damage if the UK left the EU.  EU leaders also told us exactly what would happened if …