[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Chris

I’m having a hard time trying to be sympathetic with this case. For a start, where’s the concern with the CO2 footprint he’s generating, sending consignments of his own product to France to get dyed and then transporting it back again? Is there literally nowhere anywhere closer to Derbyshire that could do it?

For seconds, Brexit having been on the cards from the date of the referendum in 2016 and having actually occurred 3 years ago, it’s not as if the likelihood of this happening was unknown. I find it difficult to believe someone who has fought so hard to build and maintain his business was suddenly blindsided by the possibility of import/export tariffs …

… especially when, third, he is so hyper-aware of his industry’s flight to the far east and purports to be taking a stand against it. I find his logic somewhat confusing here. Either he thinks the offshoring of industry is a good thing or a bad thing. Or is it only bad when other people do it? Because it looks to me very much as if he wants to off-shore bits of his business whenever it’s convenient.

In reality, sovereign governments use tariff barriers deliberately to discourage the behaviour this business wished to continue post Brexit. That was entirely foreseeable, and is entirely how regaining control of import/export flows is supposed to work. It sounds very much to me as if an awful lot of special pleading has gone on here, and it has spent a lot of time in court or some other appeals process, and the business has just lost. If the writer of the letter really did bet the entire farm on a different outcome then more fool him.

He was aware of the potential difficulties from Brexit but it seems to be a very specialised trade with little expertise in the UK

Drapers October 2016
“We are the last lace manufacturer of our kind in the UK and still manufacture in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, with a few complementary French laces. Brexit could be potentially fatal for us. We get everything dyed in France, our yarn is from France and our main export market is into Europe, so I can’t imagine how we can get products back and forth without tariffs. It’s a worry.”