Deborah Meaden: Brexit is a process and business deserves better

Get Brexit Done is one of the political slogans of our generation. It shone as a beacon of finality for those weary souls ground down by years of debate. It was simple and of course, hugely effective, but at the expense of reality.

Brexit is a process not an event. The reversal of 45 years of integration could never happen overnight.

Ask the Welsh fishers who are struggling to sell lobsters to France if it’s done. Or the Scottish distillers failing to sell gin to Germany. Ask British business struggling with red tape and considering relocation to the continent whether it’s done.

Yet this is OK. Speak to anyone in business, at least anyone with a strategic mindset, and they will tell you nothing is ever done: everything can and must be reviewed, evaluated and improved.

This applies to Brexit too and indeed there is a formal review mechanism written in: ‘Parties shall jointly review the implementation of this Agreement and supplementing agreements and any matters related thereto five years after entry into force of this Agreement and every five years thereafter.’

Every five years the UK and EU will review the Trade and Co-operation Agreement. They will decide what they want to keep, what they want to change, what they want to ditch. The first review is scheduled to begin in 2024.

But no review can take place without an evaluation of the situation so far. Time and hard work will be required to get to the point where the government of the day can enter negotiations armed with a decent grasp of what’s wrong and what needs to change to make it better.

To this end, I have signed up to be an advisor on a new Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations. It has been set up to identify problems created by the Brexit agreements and propose solutions that have broad based support and would bring evident benefits across the economy and society.

Its sole focus is working with leaders in sectors affected by Brexit to define the problems they are experiencing - and what changes could be made to the Brexit agreements to make them go away. It will work with all sides, including the EU, to develop a series of ideas and options for Trade and Co-operation Agreement negotiations in 2024.

It is my aim to put the voice of business front and centre of this work. To listen to the Welsh fishers and the Scottish distillers and those struggling with the lack of tariff-free trade.

Up to £9.5 billion of UK exports to the EU between January and July this year had tariffs imposed despite promises of tariff-free trade. Nearly two thirds of companies that trade with the EU say their costs have risen and more than two thirds said they had to absorb this themselves. Over the same period imports from the EU fell by 25 per cent, while exports to the EU fell by 13 per cent.

We can and must do better which means seizing the opportunity the Trade and Co-operation Agreement review will provide to get a genuinely good deal for Britain — one that might help our economy function instead of dragging it back by the heels.

However we voted years ago, now is the time to come together to work out where we are. To welcome what’s working and be honest about what is not, then plot our way forward to something better. To acknowledge that Brexit will never be done because it must be reviewed and constantly improved, which is precisely the process the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations will support.

Deborah Meaden is a businesswoman and adviser to the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations

This article was first published in The Times on Monday 29 November 2021.