Jade Holland Cooper breathed a sigh of relief on Christmas Eve. The UK’s 11th-hour free-trade deal with the EU appeared to have cleared the way for her fast-growing retail business to prosper.
Over the past fortnight, though, the fashion designer’s optimism has morphed into despair.
Alarm bells started ringing when a Belgian customer called her company, Holland Cooper, to complain that they had been charged £400 of duty on an £800 order because the correct paperwork was not in place. That was on top of the 12% tariff that Holland Cooper itself now pays on many cross-channel deliveries.
“Boris Johnson put us all under the illusion that there was going to be seamless trade, but it doesn’t really feel like there is a deal here