London’s small businesses are pooling experiences of Brexit on a new website.
Pro-EU campaign group Open Britain is collecting testimony from entrepreneurs affected by the vote to leave the European Union.
The accounts sent in so far include an organic food company boss who says she fears extra costs from leaving the European customs union, a restaurateur bemoaning the higher price of imported ingredients and a digital marketing agency who says clients have cancelled projects.
The project, called Listen Local, is designed to give ammunition to opponents of a “hard Brexit” when Theresa May starts negotiations on leaving terms with 27 other EU leaders next month.
Zoe Petrovna, of food business Wunder Workshop, said there was uncertainty over whether their products would be accepted for EU markets in future.
“We’ve been paying all of this money for these certifications but now it’s just not going to be worth anything,” she said.
Andy Shanks, of marketing agency Ideas Made, which has offices in London and Ljubljana, said plans had been hit by June’s referendum. “Clients were hesitating, not willing to spend money. And then projects which we thought were coming up, and clients had verbally committed to, never happened.”
Ian Coll, who runs the Mamuska! Polish Kitchen and Bar at Elephant and Castle, said staff were anxious about their future status in the UK.
“Our main concern now is about recruiting staff,” he said. “They need to ensure the doors are left open for young people to come and work from Europe. As a country, we would be crazy to shut them out.”
Streatham Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who is backing the project, said it had proved businesses were already being damaged by a “headlong rush towards hard Brexit”.
“The Government has made a political choice to allow immigration policy to dictate economic policy, and therefore to pull Britain out of our most important trading bloc,” he said.
“This will damage small businesses which sell to and do business in Europe. Their voices must be heard.”
