From Wednesday, EU businesses sending agricultural produce to the U.K. will need to comply with onerous new paperwork requirements — with some warning they will give up exporting across the Channel as a result.
The extra bureaucracy will be compounded by new physical checks on consignments from April, and yet more layers of paperwork from October.
But despite the mounting red tape, Leadsom told broadcaster Times Radio: “It was very clear in the Brexit discussions … that we would be leaving the single market. What that does mean is that there is some friction in trade.
“There is a huge new opportunity for the U.K. at the same time as continuing to trade, albeit with some friction, which is the price you pay for leaving the single market and for being a sovereign state again.”
“For me as a Brexiteer, I am still absolutely convinced that this is the right thing to do.”
The health minister, who campaigned for the Leave side of the referendum in 2016, talked up the prospects of doing trade deals with other countries as an alternative to EU membership.
