“Car crash!” exclaimed managing director Andrew Varga, whose Brexit progress I have been following since the referendum. News of the latest Brexit U-turn landed on him on Tuesday out of the blue. All his years of preparation for a new UK product safety mark, all his thousands of pounds wasted, all the uncountable hours and effort were rendered pointless, at a stroke. Think, he says, of the great opportunity cost of that time and money, fruitlessly frittered instead of being invested in innovations and sales.
The government slipped out the news that it has abandoned a new product safety mark, UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed), which was intended to certify that products were checked to UK standards. The Brexiters rejected 30 years of using the European CE mark (whisper it, but it stands for the awful Conformité Européenne), recognised worldwide as a gold standard. All for what? Out of pure Brexit mania so that nationalist Britain would have its own, forcing double inspections. What’s more, all EU suppliers or exporters to the UK had to apply for the new UKCA mark, a strong disincentive to trade with the UK.
