Phil Ward’s Bristol-based start-up Eskimo had a hit on its hands: a high-fashion, energy-efficient electric radiator, built on new technology from city academics. Orders were flowing from the Birmingham factory, and the plan was to send them across Europe via the Channel Tunnel. That was before the UK left the EU. By 2025, Ward says, the proportion of Eskimo’s exports going to the European Union had collapsed from 40% to just 5%.
The post-Brexit trade deal, signed by Boris Johnson in December 2020, guaranteed zero tariffs on goods sold to the EU. But for Ward, red tape and paperwork – not tariffs – proved the killer. “The Long Brexit effect,” he calls it. Delays, costs and the expectation of hassle were enough to scare off customers. Eskimo stopped selling directly to European consumers altogether. A planned expansion into Germany floundered.
“Bristol firm Eskimo saw EU exports drop from 40% to 5% as Brexit red tape strangled growth.”
When the firm tried to export towel rails to Australia and New Zealand, it hit another wall. Both countries abide by international safety standards heavily influenced by the EU’s CE mark. One theoretical benefit of Brexit was the freedom for UK regulators to diverge from EU rules and take a more pro-innovation, less regulatory approach. Yet Eskimo found itself still bound to the bloc’s standards.
Eskimo’s story is a microcosm of a broader trend. The UK Trade Policy Observatory at Sussex University calculated a 26% reduction in the different types of UK exports by 2023. A new study from Aston University Business School, using five years of detailed trade data, concluded a loss of 53.8% of export varieties and 31.5% for imports – the number of different products sent to different EU countries.
A decade ago, many economists warned that leaving the EU would inflict longer-term damage on the UK economy. Many believe that damage has now come to pass. But measuring it requires comparing what actually happened with what might have happened without Brexit – a judgment clouded by the pandemic that hit in spring 2020, the war in Ukraine from 2022, and the energy price shock sparked by the conflict in Iran. And there remains the open question: would a Brexit-free UK have kept pace with the Silicon Valley tech boom in recent years?