Lisa O’Carroll

So I spoke to the National Farmers Union a little while ago about the realignment in relation to rules.

And we were talking about the 16,000 businesses like the cheesemongers up in Yorkshire, Cheshire, who no longer sell into Europe.

And as the president of the NFU said, business is really, really competitive.

The food business is really, really competitive.

It will take years to rebuild market share that the UK had.

And as he said, there aren't shops with displays going, you know, empty shelves going, waiting for a British product.

There just isn't.

So, yeah, it'll reduce the paperwork.

But I think a lot more will need to be done to get those small and medium sized businesses to persuade them and give them the support that they need to get through.

There will still be paperwork.

Thank you.

It is not a subject you hear of in Brussels.

If you ring somebody, one of your contacts, and ask them to talk about the UK, dismissive might be too strong a word, but there's an antipathy to the subject.

You know, you get sort of warm words, most definitely on things like strategy and defence, military.

But when it comes to this Brexit thing, it's not so much that it's toxic, but it's, oh, that's... Old news.

That referendum was 10 years ago.

Yeah, indeed.

And he was the shadow Brexit secretary and campaigned to remain in the EU.

I mean, I think it puzzles guardian readers as to why the Labour Party isn't more ambitious, why it's not more forthright.

And I think in the early days, the fear was that Nigel Farage was on the move and that it would be bullish to raise Brexit.