‘Same nightmare week after week’: UK firms fed up with post-Brexit EU trade

‘Same nightmare week after week’: UK firms fed up with post-Brexit EU trade

Mark Brearley is still frustrated by Brexit. More than a year from Britain’s formal withdrawal from the EU, on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, exporting the goods his company produces hasn’t got any easier for the London-based manufacturer.

Describing it as “the same nightmare week after week”, he says: “A lot more time is spent with things going wrong. The EU really feels like the hardest place in the world to ship things to sometimes.”

For the past seven decades the company Brearley runs, Kaymet, has made and sold tea trolleys, trays and hotplates from its factory just off the Old Kent Road to customers including the British royal family. It’s thought that Kaymet’s wares were used by the queen – celebrating her platinum jubilee this week – on her coronation world tour. The company sells goods in 40 countries across the world.