A toast to Tim Martin and JD Wetherspoon. Anyone who knocks out a well-kept ale, a Coke and two hot meals in Fulham for under 25 quid and still makes a margin clearly knows his business. As a competently run organisation, ’Spoons has apparently prepared well for a hard Brexit . In today’s trading update, Martin boasts to the Brexit-sceptic City of how it has struck deals to swap French fizz and German lagers with alternatives from the US, Australia and the UK. But, even glossing over the fact that this prospect is in no way positive for his customers (they lose their favourite European tipples, and he could have offered Aussie lagers anyway), Brexiteer Martin’s latest gung-ho soapboxing about a no-deal departure neglects the most important point. He might have been able to prepare his relatively straightforward supply chains, but what of the thousands of more complicated, or less well-organised businesses that haven’t? The Institute of Directors says fewer than half of its members are ready for No Deal. What if they cannot simply and cheaply reorganise themselves if we crash out of our relationship with our biggest trading partner? What if foreign investment goes elsewhere, as it has… Read full this story
- 'Competition With Cooperation or With Conflict': German MPs Weigh in on Post-Brexit EU-UK Trade Deal
- Verdict on Brexit hinges on trade deals
- Nigel Farage's Brexit night party set to flop as he's unable to deliver promises
- Boris Johnson threatens to pull plug on any EU trade deal if it means following Brussels rules in ‘Mad Man’ strategy
- Wetherspoons gin festival returns soon - and this year it has watermelon flavour
- AP Exclusive: History-making tunnelers look beyond Brexit
- A hard Brexit means a hard border – whatever Owen Paterson says
- Brexit: Boris Johnson hails 'dawn of a new era' as UK leaves EU at 11pm tonight
- A nation ‘bored of Brexit’ risks sleepwalking into disaster
- Brexit weekly briefing: one chapter ends, and another begins
Comment: Brexiteer Wetherspoon boss is wrong again on No Deal have 330 words, post on www.standard.co.uk at July 10, 2019. This is cached page on Business Breaking News. If you want remove this page, please contact us.
