No wonder Brexit naysayers never mention this place when they talk about Britain’s post-Brexit trading arrangements.
But anyone who visits the port of Felixstowe will quickly realise that is utter baloney.
Brexit will work — get on with it
Jason FlowerLogistics Boss
For a start, it deals with 25 times more trade than the entire Irish border — which handles £3billion a year — and does so without a hitch.
Across the 8,360-acre site on Friday afternoon, things are busy, but calm — without a customs officer in sight.
Down at the docks, the vast vessel Marie Maersk, newly arrived from Sri Lanka, was being unloaded by crane, with no complicated paperwork.
Dean tells me that it is the 11th largest container ship in the world, capable of holding 18,270 containers. All have come from outside of the customs union but will be on the road within the hour.
Felixstowe is proof that leaving the customs union will not be the logistical disaster that some warn it could be.
Figures show an estimated 98 per cent of non-EU crates pass through the port of Felixstowe as quickly and easily as goods that arrive from within the EU.
This is because the non-EU goods have cleared customs before they even reach Britain thanks to a digital cargo-tracking system called Destin8.
Tax officials at HMRC monitor every single non-EU container ship using the system, working out the tariffs and duty owed. Intelligence gathering and data analysis helps identify 80,000 of the four million containers to be searched and monitored for any infringements.
People who work in the freight industry are adamant that Felixstowe’s systems can be adapted for Ireland.
They say no hard border would need to be built and trade can continue as before.
And it will not cost billions of pounds nor take years because everything is digital.
Talk of creating a border is ridiculous
Kate HoeyLabour MP
Jason Flower is managing director of KWL Logistics and chairman of the Felixstowe Port Users’ Association, an independent trade body which represents 115 warehouse keepers, shipping lines and hauliers — some with business interests in Northern Ireland.
Although he voted Remain, he said: “Brexit will work. It’s got to work. The public voted out. Get on with it.”
Asked whether there is any need for a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, he says: “Not with documentation nowadays. All they care about is the movement of the cargo and the duties and taxes involved. I don’t see the need for a hard border because everything is digital now.”
In Felixstowe, adding EU trade to the Destin8 system could be achieved in a matter of minutes. Alan Long, chief executive of MCP, the company behind Destin8, says: “It would probably involve a few extra keystrokes.”
No wonder people in the town of Felixstowe are baffled by Remainers’ obsession with the hard border.
Resident Katrina Andrews, 56, said: “There’s so much scaremongering about how Britain must go softly, softly.
“My husband’s a crane driver at the docks. I’m sure talk of a hard border is nonsense.”
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