I never thought that Brexit, no matter how hard, would lead to prolonged chaos at the border. The UK is bad at many things but not logistics and there is a lot the Government can do to oil the wheels. That isn’t to say there won’t be disruption, added costs and problems but companies will just have to find a way of dealing with more red tape.
The economic problems associated with Brexit are far more long term, does that red tape add too much to costs for business to bear, will investment move to the Continent and will the service sector suffer? There is plenty of room in the Treaty to negotiate on many issues and remove or smooth out problems but for the UK the problem remains the same. The UK needs trade with the EU far more than it needs trade with the UK.
Just to give an example, the deal on fishing quotas with the EU apparently ends in 5 years, on exactly the same day as the deal on energy. The UK import 5% of its energy from the EU, fishing is less than 0.01% of UK GDP. The fishing industry in the UK says it has been betrayed by this deal already, it seems unlikely to feel any better in 5 years time.
electricity and fish deals end on same day, what a coincidence.
https://jonty.substack.com/
Jonty we may import 5% of our power from the EU but they control from the EU much more and can turn it off should they choose to without entering the UK. We need UK based and loyal power businesses that can scale up to become serious players in the power supply & distribution market so the EU does not dictate. Over the next 5 years this whole industry needs a UK Energy Czar. Energy supply and distribution is the one area that ties us to the EU and arguably can tie us together as a United Kingdom. The UK trades electricity supply on half hour units, the EU trades on 15 minute units.