Quarter of rural businesses ‘could be bankrupted by no-deal Brexit’
In recent weeks the parliamentary side show has become the main issue, this article reminds me that we are just a few weeks from all of this “sound and fury” becoming real. It tells us:
As many as one in four rural businesses could be left facing bankruptcy in a no-deal Brexit, and the staunchly Conservative rural vote may be in doubt as a result, the head of the UK’s landowners’ group has warned on the eve of the Tory party conference.
Farmers are particularly vulnerable to a no-deal Brexit because tariffs would be levied on exports, imports of cheap food could flood the market, and because decisions must be made now which will have an impact for the next year. Arable farmers are putting crops in the ground now for spring, and livestock farmers are preparing to breed sheep and other livestock for next year.
Tim Breitmeyer, president of the Country Land and Business Association, said farms and the rural businesses that rely on them were not in a position to absorb the shock of Brexit, and estimates suggested a large number would be in danger.
“Agriculture is not making very much money. In many cases, they’re losing [money] without the single farm payment [subsidy]. If you have a tariff to add to your problems, if you have increased costs to add to your problems, it’s only going to make matters worse and tip some businesses over the top,” he told the Guardian. “Now I don’t know whether that’s 15% or 25% but I’m absolutely sure there will be quite a few farming businesses for which it actually just tips them into receivership.”
Rural areas voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, which Breitmeyer called a “protest vote for the fact that rural Britain got abandoned”. But the reality of new tariffs on exports, rising import costs, the crash in value of the pound and difficulties in employing migrant labour were taking a toll, he said.