And the VAT Consultants and Shipping-Brokers are clueless too. Mrs Backwoodsperson is the Logistics/Operations Manager for one of the UK production sites of a US-owned business with multiple locations in the EU and the UK. She currently has thirty-plus shipments to the EU held up at UK ports, Groupage warehouses, and her own warehouses, because no-one is able to determine what documentation is needed, or they are unable to obtain it. Add to that the fact that hauliers are refusing to collect loads because they don’t want their trucks to get ‘stuck’, and you have an almighty - and very expensive - fuck up. Many thousands of pounds of demurrage charges already, and we’re only three weeks in.

No wonder her employers are now considering whether to pull out of the UK altogether, and concentrate their production in the EU.