‘A total, utter nightmare’: small businesses on Brexit, 10 years on

Simon Spurrell says Brexit left a £250,000 hole in his business, forcing him to sell it to another company. Photograph: Hartington Creameries

Out of pocket, out of business, retired early. These are the tales of the “sunlit uplands” experienced by small-to-medium-sized businesses across Britain after Brexit.

Between 16,000 to 20,000 businesses stopped exporting to the EU altogether, but others who soldiered on complain Boris Johnson’s government catered for the “blue chips”, not the small, everyday companies when they designed the hard Brexit for Britain.