This graun story seems rock solid surely?
Brexit: food and drink exports to EU suffer ‘disastrous’ decline
Although there is already a reservation :
First-half sales fall £2bn, says industry body, as barriers are compounded by staff shortages
Nevertheless, the main claim is that the decline is 'because of Brexit trade barriers, with sales of beef and cheese hit hardest', although, again, there is a weasel: 'compounded by the lorry driver and warehouse workers shortages, which were choking the supply chain'.and 'labour shortages across the UK’s farm-to-fork food and drink supply chain'
The data seem clear enough, although they cover 2019--2021, not just the 'first half of the year' as initially claimed. To summarise:
By product category, the biggest falls in sales to the EU have been in dairy and meat: beef exports were down 37%, cheese down 34% and milk and cream down 19% in the first half of 2021 compared with the equivalent six months in 2019.
Exports to nearly all EU member states fell significantly, including a loss of more than £500m in sales to Ireland, while sales to Germany, Spain and Italy were each down around a half since the first half of 2019.
But year-on-year exports of salmon and whisky, two of Scotland’s flagship products, were up 27% and 20%. [which might need some explaining --no extra paperwork for these?]
Exporters have struggled with the extra paperwork and administrative costs that came into force on 1 January 2021...[and a return to an old issue -- still unresolved?]...the physical sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks that were not
necessary before Brexit, with lorries facing partial or full unloads in
Calais and other ports if any of the paperwork is missing.
imports were already being hit, with products of animal origin heavily
impacted. Pork imports fell 19.6%, cheese imports were down 17.6%, and
chicken imports fell by 17%.
Brexit hits exports:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/02/brexit-uk-food-drink-exports-eu-disastrous-decline
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