‘A total, utter nightmare’: small businesses on Brexit, 10 years on

Out of pocket, out of business, retired early. These are the tales of the “sunlit uplands” experienced by small-to-medium-sized businesses across Britain after Brexit . Between 16,000 to 20,000 businesses stopped exporting to the EU altogether, but others who soldiered on complain Boris Johnson’s government catered for the “blue chips”, not the small, everyday companies when they designed the hard Brexit for Britain. Cheshire cheesemaker Simon Spurrell says Brexit didn’t just leave him with a £250,000 hole in his small but fast-growing firm, but ultimately lost him his business. Back in 2021, he described Brexit as the “biggest disaster” any government has negotiated. Looking back, nothing has changed his view. “Brexit is the biggest self-harm that any government has inflicted on itself in recent history,” he says. Cheese exports to the EU, even of small value, have to be accompanied by a £180 health certificate. Photograph: Hartington Creamery In the first few weeks of 2021, Ben Fletcher, the head of Logistics UK and then at Make UK, described Brexit as “Dante’s fifth circle of hell” . Five years later? “We got even further down, to Dante’s seventh or eighth circle of hell, at its worst,” he says. Spurrell was a case in point. He discovered he could no longer export his award-winning cheese to the EU because every sale, even those only worth £30, would need to be accompanied by a £180 health certificate confirming they conformed with EU standards. …