INSIGHT-Brexit 10 years on: UK exporters still adjusting to life outside the EU

When Brexit abruptly ended British cheesemaker Michael Harte’s ambitious European export plans, four years passed ?before his young company Bridge Cheese found overseas customers for its cheddar and mozzarella products again – in faraway Hong Kong. Harte had banked on ?a ‘soft Brexit’ ?that kept frictionless trade after Britain’s shock June 23, 2016 decision to leave the European Union, he said. Instead, the world’s fifth-biggest economy left the common market completely, putting up barriers to the giant on its doorstep. From its base in Telford, central England – a town best known as the birthplace of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution…