FELIXSTOWE, England (Reuters) -

In just one month of post-Brexit trading, British logistics expert Jon Swallow has seen exports dive, prices rise and customers so desperate that he is practically offering a counselling service.

"It is day eight in a depot in Lymm just outside Warrington, Cheshire and a lorry carrying frozen carrots and mixed herbs is still waiting for clearance to board a ferry from Birkenhead to Belfast".
"because the paperwork for a single pallet of carrots is missing key information"

**Guardian Report**

Hundreds of miles away in Lisburn in Northern Ireland, the haulage firm’s operations team have had no luck in persuading the British supplier that the carrots that were ordered on 27 December are now, in the third week in January, classed as an export

and must be accompanied by a litany of documents and certificates before the trailer can be cleared to board the ferry at Birkenhead.
Another supplier on the lorry had been struggling with the documentation requiring it to supply what is known as an “Incoterms”, which determines

who pays the duty in any tariff but also establishes a specific record as to who is the importer. But that was resolved on day seven.
Then there was also the supplier who had provided a commodity code that was two digits short. A simple key stroke mistake could be difference

between the lorry getting the red or the green light for entry to NI.
“It took half a day yesterday for me to clear the supply chain. I’ve got one more issue to go,” says the visibly stressed operations man simultaneously dealing with a sheaf of about 30 documents for

Public notice from Hannants: UK's biggest model kit & accessories supplier

"There are still problems with sending parcels to the EU. To date only 3 parcels we sent have been delivered. Some are still in England. Some are in europe. We cannot find out what the problems are but .

suspect it is incorrect paperwork.
We are very sorry but we cannot start taking orders knowing that these problems exist. We are going to have to wait longer before we can re-open for EU orders but we cannot say when that will be. We cannot feed 100s of orders a day into a system

that is not working knowing they may not go anywhere.
Also bizarrely the new Royal Mail system can only accept parcels with 20 items or less in them. More than half the orders we send have more than 21 items in them. Parcelforce can take packages with any quantity of contents.

So somehow our website now needs to be modified so that if customer wants 20 items they see the Royal Mail/Parcelforce postage options but if there are more than 20 items they only get the Parcelforce option. We do not want to start work on that change at the moment.

We are no longer able to reply to emails asking when we will be opening up for EU orders. We are sorry but we do not know and we have no way to find out. Please see the message on the home page for the latest information.
DPD is still a problem and there has been little progress.

TRAGIC..
"And so it came to pass that alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson travelled to Brussels to personally take charge of the Brexit trade deal negotiations. He alone could break the deadlock, put the dastardly Eurocrats in their place and snatch victory

Many bearish sentiments across the mortgage sector because they believe companies won't succeed as much when rate finally go back up (3 maybe 4 years from now). Which makes sense except for $GHIV and here's why. In 2016 Brexit came & rates went down which lead to huge success...

in mortgages. Business was great for many companies but then in ‘17 and ‘18, rates went up. What happened you might ask? A lot of people got compressed, margins got compressed, rates went down, & people struggled in the mortgage market...

Well UWM ( $GHIV ) compound annual growth rate, from ‘16 to ’18, was 28%. Companies that focused on refi struggled, so obviously a very successful company like Rocket or Quicken, they went down 14% in compound annual growth rate in those years...

$GHIV actually grew, and so did their profits, so the opportunity to continue to grow in all cycles is a big differentiator for UWM, and the broker channel versus a lot of our competitors. When rates rise, it's actually even better for $GHIV (UWM)..

If rates stay low, great UWM will continue to crush but when the rates rise, they will continue to steal even more market share because of how they operate in the mortgage sector. People also talk about the speed in closing a loan & that other competitors are faster...

Some compelling evidence at the NI Affairs Committee this morning on Brexit, the risks of smuggling, organised crime, the "soft underbelly" of the Irish border, the loss of the European Arrest Warrant and what might replace it

2/ Giving evidence were Simon Byrne, chief constable of the PSNI, Mark McEwan, assistant chief constable, Steve Rodhouse, of the UK National Crime Agency, and Steve Tracey, of HMRC. Here's the gist of what I've just filed for @rtenews online:

3/ A UK law officer has raised the prospect of intl organised criminals trafficking drugs, people + firearms into the UK via Ireland because of tighter controls at GB ports thanks to Brexit. He also suggested that Ireland may have to tighten security at its ports accordingly.

4/ Steve Rodhouse, DG of Operations with the UK National Crime Agency, said organised criminals would be making a “fundamental choice” as to whether they continue to traffic drugs, people and firearms into the UK via English ports...

5/ ...or whether they might decide to switch routes into the UK through Northern Ireland via the Irish Republic.
Mr Rodhouse told a House of Commons committee that such trafficking was already underway through what could be termed the “soft underbelly” of the Irish border.

It's OUT! My latest #Brexit Briefing for @FinancialTimes - examining @BorisJohnson
"buy now, pay later" Northern Ireland Protocol, why the EU-UK trust deficit is killing it, how that can be restored - because it needs to work. /1

@BorisJohnson The danger here is that lingering animus over the opportunistic nature Johnson's Faustian bargain - dividing his Kingdom in order to 'get #Brexit done' and win an 80-seat majority - is clouding judgement on both sides of the Channel /2

@BorisJohnson The facts of the Protocol are no less true for Johnson's constant denial of them - that there would be checks, that there really is a trade border that now prevents plants and pets from travelling freely from Bedford to Ballymena as M.Gove reminds us. But these are other facts/3

@BorisJohnson Firstly, NI remains part of UK, even if it is now has EU customs rules.

Secondly, NI remains politically divided and fragile; the Good Friday Agreement is a constant work in progress.

Thirdly, both the EU and the UK agreed to this unsatisfactory arrangement jointly. /4

@BorisJohnson Fourthly, therefore, they have a joint responsibility to make it work because

Fifthly - and most importantly — there is no alternative to it. /5

1/ Quick thread. At the end of the third week of Brexit being "done", I can only say that I'm exhausted.

Immediate pressures on companies who have been trading goods have been on grappling with all of the new customs and regulatory requirements.

2/ It's clear that agrifood businesses have been the hardest hit due to the SPS checks and other requirements.

But for others, the shift from a distributor model to importer/exporter has been a challenge. This hasn't been helped by certain IT system not working as planned.

3/ So are these "teething problems"? Companies are grappling with the new systems & formalities.

Some are, but many others aren't.

Worth noting that freight volumes are still below average. But stockpiles are running low, coming weeks are going to be interesting.

4/ Two issues that are immediately facing many businesses that won't be addressed by sorting this teething period.

First, many businesses are facing the largest shift in their cost base in a generation.

5/ This comes from the cost of dealing with the customs procedures, upgrading IT systems to manage the new requirements, setting up European operating centres to comply with regulatory requirements, new immigration costs, the list goes on.

At today's Future Relationship with the European Union Committee - we're hearing from @CSBarnard24 that the deal has a slightly "alice in wonderland quality" about it - nothing really appears quite as it first looks. If you compare to what we had until 1 Jan, it falls short. 1/

For example, there's a statement that the dispute resolution mechanisms doesn’t apply, but if you plough on until the end you see that some chunks of the DSM are actually incorporated over non-regression provisions. @CSBarnard24 2/

From @SamuelMarcLowe: "the premise of this agreement [is] to remove tariffs & do v little to remove barriers to trade and services. If you’re prioritising the economic status quo and economic integration with Europe then of course this deal is going to disappoint you." 3/

"This deal is actually very unstable", says @CSBarnard24. "One of the problems is that this constant contestation of the deal creates quite a lot of difficulties for businesses." 4/

"If you’re a car manufacturer that wants to invest in a new plant, you don’t know whether tariffs are going to be imposed either because the deal is brought to an end or due to potential govt retaliation - this is the main concern of this deal." @CSBarnard24 5/