Why is Sir Keir imposing full range of costly EU laws and regulations on 98.1% of all UK business?
Govt’s ‘EU Re-Set’ is “down to ideology, not nation’s interests,” says Andrew Griffith, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
What follows is from the Facts4EU think-tank in collaboration with Stand for our Sovereignty and CIBUK.Org, and in exclusive association with GB News.
Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Andrew Griffith MP, gives us his thoughts exclusively.
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Last week, HMRC released its data for the number of businesses importing and exporting goods in 2025. This has been analysed by the Brexit Facts4EU think-tank, with assistance from their colleagues in allied organisations, and the conclusions have been shared exclusively with GB News.
The outputs of this research are startling. They prompt many questions of the Government and of its insistence on ever-closer, dynamic alignment with the EU’s Single Market. The questions become even more difficult for some of those in the Cabinet who have been calling for additional alignment with the EU’s Customs Union.
Commenting exclusively to GB News and Facts4EU, the Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Andrew Griffith MP, had plenty to say about this report. Here is how he started:
“This is about a Prime Minister who cannot accept the result of the 2016 referendum and is determined to give us the worst of all worlds as a rule taker with no voice at the table.
“It’s about ideology, not the national interest or supporting British businesses.”
– Andrew Griffith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Given the ‘EU Re-Set’ is mostly about easing trade with the EU, what % of all UK businesses export to the EU?
- 40%? 25%? 15%?
- No, the answer is less than 2%.
- 1.9% of all UK businesses were exporting goods to the EU in 2025, according to HMRC.
[Source: HMRC report, Apr 2026.]
What does this mean for the others?
- More than 98% of all UK businesses do NOT export goods to the EU
- 98% of all UK businesses aren’t affected by additional paperwork the EU Commission places on goods exports from the UK
- Yet 100% of all UK businesses will have extra costs and rules imposed, due to the Government’s ‘EU Re-Set’
The Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Andrew Griffith MP, commented further to GB News:
“These figures blow the Government’s strategy out of the water.
“Just 2% of British businesses export goods to the EU yet Keir Starmer wants to shackle the other 98% domestic businesses to Brussels’ bureaucratic rulebook, with no vote, no voice, and no way out.”
– Andrew Griffith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
But hang on, surely some businesses don’t actually employ anyone, so they don’t really count?
It’s fairly well known that there are many, very small businesses in the UK. If we were to exclude these from the grand total of 5.7 million, surely the percentage of businesses of that smaller total who are exporting to the EU – and who actually employ people – would be much higher?
The answer is that it’s higher, naturally, but hardly impressive. The percentage is 7.6%.
Yes, fewer than 8% of all UK business employers export goods to the EU. 92% of businesses who employ people sell nothing to EU27 countries.
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2026 – click to enlarge
[Source: HMRC report, Apr 2026.]
Given the ‘EU Re-Set’ is mostly about the economy and businesses, how many actual businesses are involved?
This would seem to be a legitimate question, with Sir Keir Starmer and his colleagues talking constantly about how Brexit has made life almost impossible for UK businesses. Thus far we have spoken of percentages. Now we look at numbers.
The Government seems to base its impressions of business views mostly on the conversations they have had with Big Business and organisations such as the CBI, the National Farmers Union, and others, who mostly represent a section of the larger, privileged business community.
Below we present this information in numerical, rather than percentage terms.
[Source: HMRC report, Apr 2026.]
| Exporting only | EU only | 11,942 |
| Exporting only | EU and non-EU | 4,859 |
| Importing and exporting | EU only | 13,666 |
| Importing and exporting | EU and non-EU | 77,669 |
| TOTAL | 108,136 | |
| TOTAL OF ALL UK BUSINESSES | 5,690,265 |
As can be seen, that’s a total of only 108,136 businesses out of all 5,690,265 businesses across the UK, who are involved in exporting goods to the EU.
With so few UK businesses involved in exporting to the EU, we asked Andrew Griffiths MP for his thoughts once again.
In addition to being Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, he was formerly Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exports, and Economic Secretary to the Treasury. It would be fair to say he understands a thing or two about this area.
In addition, he is that rare commodity in the Commons – an MP who has considerable business experience in his own right before entering Parliament.
“This is the tail wagging the dog. No one says to the Canadian Parliament that they have to adopt domestically rules set by the US Congress just because they are a neighbouring export market. Two-tier Keir really doesn’t get how trade works.”
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Finally, what is the direction of travel?
It is reasonably well-known that the UK has increasingly been trading with the rest of the World, and less and less with the EU, over many decades. The latest figures from the HMRC’s report last week confirmed this trend.
In all the figures above, we have focused on exports, as this is the alleged problem the Labour Government has been supposedly addressing in its ‘EU Re-Set’. This has been one of its major justifications for the entire Re-Set, as the Government’s No.1 priority is economic growth and it sees export sales as being a key part of this.
Below, we broaden the horizon to include both imports and exports
Of the 362,992 businesses importing or exporting goods during 2025:
- 106,620 of businesses were moving goods to or from EU countries only
- This decreased by 2,343 or 2%
- 144,381 of businesses were moving goods to or from non‑EU countries only
- This increased by 12,233 or 9%
The Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Andrew Griffith MP, gave the People’s Channel and Brexit Facts4EU his final thoughts:
“I spent 25 years building businesses; this Government has spent the last year taxing them, regulating them and now signing our sovereignty away to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Labour’s ‘EU Reset’ is a Trojan Horse surrender of powers that rightly belong with Parliament – just as they do in the way other sovereign countries do.
“The Conservatives will oppose it at every turn.”
- Andrew Griffith MP, 22 Apr 2026
All of this information has been extracted by the Brexit Facts4EU think-tank from HMRC’s latest report, published last Thursday, 16 April 2026, with additional information from HMRC’s summer report on the composition of the UK business community.
The HMRC import and export report itself is based on the information they collect from all businesses making a customs declaration and it covers goods moved between Great Britain (GB) and the European Union (EU), and between the United Kingdom (UK) and countries outside the EU.
Observations
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“Don’t leave us this way…”
We are effective at getting the messages out there
If more patriotic members of the public donate, we will keep going.
Please donate today to our research partner, Facts4eu, if you would like to continue reading us tomorrow, next week, and the weeks after.