FIRMS SAY HUGE GAMBLE ON BREXIT COULD WORSEN JOB CRISIS

The United Kingdom (UK) has passed the point of no return. It has less than six months to reach a new trade deal with the European Union (EU) or risk heaping more pressure on companies that are already laying off tens of thousands of workers because of the coronavirus pandemic, Hanna Ziady wrote for CNN Business on July 1, 2020.

More than 100 companies, entrepreneurs and trade organizations have written to Boris Johnson, warning the prime minister that erecting barriers to doing business with the UK’s biggest trading partner would put even more people out of work and lower living standards.

The firms, many of which are in the manufacturing and chemicals sectors, have called for a new trade deal that matches current arrangements as closely as possible. Brexit took effect on January 31 but UK-EU trade has continued as if nothing changed thanks to a transition agreement. The deadline for the UK to ask the EU to extend that transition beyond the end of this year expired on Tuesday.

"Businesses simply do not have time or capacity to prepare for big changes in trading rules by the end of the year — especially given that we are already grappling with the upheaval caused by coronavirus," said the letter, which was shared with CNN Business. The decision not to extend the transition period is a "huge gamble," they added.