A LEADING local businessman has warned that the North leaving the EU in around nine weeks time will have a devastating effect on the local economy.
His comments come in the wake of an official UK government document codenamed ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ leaked to the Sunday Times revealing the potential impact of a no-deal Brexit.
Referring to border communities like Fermanagh, the document said that price and other differentials are likely to lead to the growth of illegitimate economy, such as smuggling.
The document also explained that avoiding the return of a hard border in the North is likely to prove ‘unsustainable.’ Contingency planning by the Government suggests that a hard border is all but inevitable, which may lead to ‘direct action’ and road blockades but there will be no ‘new checks, with limited exceptions’ on the border.
The document also details that the North may be hit with job losses and disruption to trade with the agri-food sector hit the hardest.
Border business man Terry Hughes whose filling station straddles the border in Belleek said the realisation of Brexit is becoming clear, but the document is ‘nothing we did not know before.’
“It is nothing that anyone who was reading between the lines did not know already. It is the realisation of what the leavers wanted. For the likes of ourselves, our fuel comes from Dublin – through Derrylin, Enniskillen and over to ourselves. That won’t be able to happen now, our fuel will have to come through Sligo. We would buy a lot of our stock from the UK and we will no longer be able to do that after Brexit.
The whole of the North is going to suffer. I do not think movement is going to be a problem – there wasn’t a problem when there was a border here before but it will be detrimental to trade and business. Farming in the North will be completely decimated, and business in general is going to be impacted.”
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