From City AM:
Retail industry experts have warned gaps could appear on supermarket shelves if the government does not secure the right customs agreements and infrastructure investment required to prepare the UK for Brexit, retail experts have warned.
That's nonsense for a start.
Supermarket shelves are pretty much the most valuable and coveted space of all, which is why supermarkets effectively rent shelf space to food producers. They's be stupid to leave them empty, they'll just display something else instead (i.e. home-grown food).
A lot of stuff on supermarket shelves is from outside the EU and that manages to get here OK...
In a report highlighting the changes the UK will face on leaving the Customs Union, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said the government must not "underestimate the complexity and scale of the challenge" the transition poses...
The trade body has estimated that customs declarations could rise in number by between 55m and 255m per year, and that an extra 180,000 companies could be filing declarations for the first time, if the UK leaves the EU on the terms set by the World Trade Organisation.
In addition, ports must be ready to handle a higher throughput of regulatory documents after Brexit to avoid delays.
Hey, let's not bother with all this regulatory crap. Of course we have to have spot checks at borders, that's what they're there for, but can't we just continue on the assumption that if something is good enough for the EU market it is good enough for ours and just wave it through?