Brexit weekly news digest 21 December

The main message that has been issued to businesses through the media is that a no deal exit now has to be planned for as an operational reality.  Whilst debates are still ongoing with MPs, the Meaningful Vote on the details of the negotiated deal is set for the week commencing 14th January 2019.

With just 100 days to go before Brexit, on Wednesday, the five main business lobbying groups  have made clear their fears that businesses now do not have enough time to prepare for leaving the EU without a negotiated deal, saying that they consider "The lack of progress in Westminster means that the risk of a no-deal Brexit is rising."

The Home Office also issued their paper around the immigration rules , if there is to be an agreement based around the withdrawal conditions negotiated by the Prime Minister.  The paper outlines support for skilled labour, the capping of inward immigration and the limits that are to be imposed on free movement of labour.

Full details of the skills based immigration paper can be seen at Skills Based Immigration System at .gov

The Department for Exiting the EU also issued a raft of new technical notices which are to help businesses prepare for a no deal EU exit.  All notices can be found at No Deal Technical Notices categorised by trading process.  The GC BGH will look to summarise the notices to help businesses but a ‘triage’ system can be found at Business leaving the EU.

In addition, the European Union also issued their own set of 14 measures , outlining their priorities and arrangements in a no deal scenario.

The Bank of England has responded to the news with a downgrading of the growth forecasts, saying that the lack of clarity of hitting the economy

And on Tuesday, amid the ramping up of No Deal scenario planning, government announced that they would be writing to 140,000 businesses outlining what they would need to do at the borders.