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UK’s £35bn fashion industry warns of “decimation” from #brexit - big names sign open letter to @BorisJohnson urging action. Many of 50,000 SMEs on the rack due to VAT, customs and work permit issues. Stay with me/1

@BorisJohnson You can read the full text of the letter here, co-ordinated by Fashion Round Table @FashionRoundTab, but tl;dr it says that #Brexit has left a "gaping hole" in an industry that relies of free movement of professionals. It's a familiar cry /2

https://t.co/gGurZTIcho
@BorisJohnson @FashionRoundTab The industry, already whacked by #COVID19, is now discovering that cross-border sales are a horror (VAT, Customs, long delays) and models, stylists, photographers that used to blat around Europe can't any more. They need permits, for themselves, for their gear /3
It is on one level amazing that this is only just fully dawning - as the musician industry found out recently - but fashion is not just big names and big companies. It's actually a mountain of small companies and sole traders often that feed into a huge (£35bn) industry /4
I've written about fashion models issue before (they need tier-5 sponsorship visas) and how that will erode London's status as a hub, but this goes so much wider than this - hence the #dontmakefashionhistory campaign - and comes down the lack of a mobility chapter in the deal /5
This campaign has some big names...400 have signed, including @twiggy @YLBofficialsite Yasmin Le Bon, Nick Knight, @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk and serious industry players, who now see how badly an industry like fashion gets squeezed by #brexit /6
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk These luminaries want some kind of 'fix'...as Helen Brocklebank, CEO of @Walpole_UK says 42% per cent of UK luxury export sales are from the EU. The #Brexit costs and admin mean many of her members "have concluded they simply can’t afford to continue selling to those countries"/7
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk @Walpole_UK Isabel Ettedgui, the chief executive of Savile Row brand Connolly, which sells Scottish cashmere and manufactures leather goods in Spain says its an existential challenge for "a 185-year-old company that holds the Royal Warrant" /8
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk @Walpole_UK Katharine Hamnett, the fashion designer best known for political T-shirts and championing ethical business practices, says "brands will die" without a radical overhaul of customs & VAT arrangements /9
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk @Walpole_UK These are big names, but they are the front of house for a huge number of small traders - the button makers, the jewellery makers, the leather workers, stylists etc that fitted into an industry that has grown up on free movement - which is now at an end /10
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk @Walpole_UK And as Barnier aid @StefaanDeRynck observed after the musicians made similar pleas...well, that's what happens when you don't have a 'mobility chapter ' in the deal' - welcome to a new world of #brexit /11

https://t.co/4FftDitAKr
@Twiggy @YLBofficialsite @RoksandaIlincic @laurabailey_uk @Walpole_UK @StefaanDeRynck So where is the British government in all this? Well, pretty impotent really - it just issues statements saying it is working with industry, it wants to "seize new opportunities" and, oh, it has helplines that it spent money on...but then what else can it say? /12
Fashion is a big UK success story - 1.6% of UK GDP, growing 11% a year - and trading with New York or Tokyo or China really isn't going to help a lot of those SMEs offset the losses that come with a deal that makes it a pain to buy British, sell to the EU, hire a UK model /13
There are some things in the UK's gift that @FashionRoundTab is asking for - like putting garment workers on the occupation shortage list, but on the really big stuff - customs, VAT, free movement - well, that's what we asked for. We wanted to be Canada...now we are /14
@FashionRoundTab There is still hope in some industries that as #COVID19 lifts, as the UK erects the same customs borders as the EU in July (and EU traders and professionals feels the same pinch) that 'common sense will prevail and that easements and fixes will emerge..../15
@FashionRoundTab But given the politics at the moment - UK refusing EU ambo full recognition, the spats over #COVID19 vaccines, the clusterf*** over the Irish protocol last weekend, the appointment of Lord Frost "Captain Sovereignty" as chief #Brexit guy, I'm not sure I'd bet on it /16
@FashionRoundTab The fashion industry is of course right to campaign hard as it can, for whatever it can get, but as @SamuelMarcLowe has observed, there are hard limits - whether on professional services, or hubbing goods into the EU from the UK - on what can be achieved /17
@FashionRoundTab @SamuelMarcLowe The #COVID19 pandemic gives the govt some breathing space...but sooner or later, you'd think the government will have to start to explain what the point of all this is? Other than alluding to the mythical 'sea of opportunity'...which may start to grate when folks are drowning END

More from Peter Foster

More from Economy

It's always been detached, and it's always made the real economy worse.

[THREAD] 1/10


What is profit? It's excess labor.

You and your coworkers make a chair. Your boss sells that chair for more than he pays for the production of that chair and pockets the extra money.

So he pays you less than what he should and calls the unpaid labor he took "profit." 2/10

Well, the stock market adds a layer to that.

So now, when you work, it isn't just your boss that is siphoning off your excess labor but it is also all the shareholders.

There's a whole class of people who now rely on you to produce those chairs without fair compensation. 3/10

And in order to support these people, you and your coworkers need to up your productivity. More hours etc.

But Wall Street demands endless growth in order to keep the game going, so that's not enough.

So as your productivity increases, your relative wages suffer. 4/10

Not because the goods don't have value or because your labor is worth less. Often it's actually worth more because you've had to become incredibly productive in order to keep your job.

No, your wages suffer because there are so many people who need to profit from your work. 5/10

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महर्षि कश्यप की तेरह पत्नियां थीं।लेकिन विनता व कद्रु नामक अपनी दो पत्नियों से उन्हे विशेष लगाव था।एक दिन महर्षि आनन्दभाव में बैठे थे कि तभी वे दोनों उनके समीप आकर उनके पैर दबाने लगी।


प्रसन्न होकर महर्षि कश्यप बोले,"मुझे तुम दोनों से विशेष लगाव है, इसलिए यदि तुम्हारी कोई विशेष इच्छा हो तो मुझे बताओ। मैं उसे अवश्य पूरा करूंगा ।"

कद्रू बोली,"स्वामी! मेरी इच्छा है कि मैं हज़ार पुत्रों की मां बनूंगी।"
विनता बोली,"स्वामी! मुझे केवल एक पुत्र की मां बनना है जो इतना बलवान हो की कद्रू के हज़ार पुत्रों पर भारी पड़े।"
महर्षि बोले,"शीघ्र ही मैं यज्ञ करूंगा और यज्ञ के उपरांत तुम दोनो की इच्छाएं अवश्य पूर्ण होंगी"।


महर्षि ने यज्ञ किया,विनता व कद्रू को आशीर्वाद देकर तपस्या करने चले गए। कुछ काल पश्चात कद्रू ने हज़ार अंडों से काले सर्पों को जन्म दिया व विनता ने एक अंडे से तेजस्वी बालक को जन्म दिया जिसका नाम गरूड़ रखा।जैसे जैसे समय बीता गरुड़ बलवान होता गया और कद्रू के पुत्रों पर भारी पड़ने लगा


परिणामस्वरूप दिन प्रतिदिन कद्रू व विनता के सम्बंधों में कटुता बढ़ती गयी।एकदिन जब दोनो भ्रमण कर रहीं थी तब कद्रू ने दूर खड़े सफेद घोड़े को देख कर कहा,"बता सकती हो विनता!दूर खड़ा वो घोड़ा किस रंग का है?"
विनता बोली,"सफेद रंग का"।
तो कद्रू बोली,"शर्त लगाती हो? इसकी पूँछ तो काली है"।