UK manufacturers attack post-Brexit customs plan - FT

Stephen Phipson, Chief Executive of the EEF, the trade body representing Britain’s leading manufacturing companies, said in a letter to Business Secretary Greg Clark that the so-called “maximum facilitation” plan could not be ready by the end of a Brexit transition period in 2020, the Financial Times (FT) reports.

Key Quotes:

Warned that the UK-EU customs plan favored by Eurosceptic ministers such as foreign secretary Boris Johnson for after Brexit is “pie in the sky”.

The proposal had “fundamental flaws”, saying it was both “naive” and “unrealistic” to believe that a high-technology, the frictionless border could be delivered by the end of the transition.

“Suggesting ‘max fac’ is a solution to our immediate problems is pie in the sky thinking.”