My friend Sandra is a highflyer. She works in the legally complicated field of IT compliance. It’s a demanding job. Sandra has no difficulty understanding rules and regulations. That’s the meat and drink of her job.
Sandra has a great friend in Ireland who has cancer and has been in and out of hospital. As people with serious illnesses sometimes do, Sandra’s friend took up a hobby. In her case, painting flowers. A UK company had a particular book on flower painting she wanted, but the firm said it couldn’t send it to Ireland. So, she asked Sandra if she could source it in the UK and send it on. Sandra ordered the book and had it delivered to her address in Scotland. Then, at about the cost of £10, she mailed it on 29 May via the UK Post Office in central Glasgow to her friend in Dublin. It never arrived.
Embarrassed to raise the matter with Sandra, her friend said nothing. Perhaps Sandra had forgotten or was just very busy at work and the favour had slipped her mind, wondered the friend. Eventually, Sandra found out the book had vanished. She was annoyed that her promise to her friend hadn’t been fulfilled and with the postal authorities for failing to successfully move a small parcel the 200 miles between Glasgow and Dublin. So, on 1July she raised a claim on the Royal Mail’s web site. She was out of pocket by about £20, but more importantly, her sick friend had been disappointed. So far, no response has come from the Royal Mail.
Returned to sender
But lo and behold, on 24 July the parcel was delivered back to Sandra’s home in Scotland. Just the parcel. No explanation was provided about why it was returned to sender.
Almost certainly the reasons for all this inconvenience and a good deed gone wrong is Brexit. Because after the UK left the EU, Ireland became a third country in UK postal terms. This means that all parcels from the UK to and from any EU state, regardless of size or content, now require a customs declaration. Sandra didn’t know this until being told at the Post Office counter. Sandra is now convinced she was given the wrong form, which would suggest that even Post Office staff have difficulty with the new post-Brexit bureaucracy.
UK and Irish citizens can live in each other’s countries without needing any residency or work permits. They can even vote in each other’s general and local elections. They can’t, however, send parcels across the Irish Sea without Brexit penalty.
The customs declaration is needed because the person receiving a parcel may have to pay local customs or VAT charges and possibly a handling fee.
Once we were part of a helpful club
That a UK company told Sandra’s friend it couldn’t send a book to Ireland is not a surprise. Many small businesses just don’t have the time or resources to manage the new postal regime.
This is not a tale of about the great events of international affairs or about the machinations of the corridors of power. But it is a tale of how the lives of ordinary, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens have become more difficult by a decision made by the UK to quit the EU. Once, we were part of a club that tried quite hard to remove as much as possible the small costs and inconveniences of life. Ease of postage was one. The end of mobile phone roaming charges another. Fast passage through customs and immigration at points of entry yet another. All gone. And for what?
A tale told by an idiot
When I think of the campaign run by the Leave side and the subsequent disaster over future relations with the EU we saw from the May, Johnson and Truss governments, my mind is drawn to Shakespeare’s MacBeth. MacBeth’s nihilism might stand as a flag for Brexit:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Note: Sandra is not the real name of the person at the centre of the story, who asked not to be identified.
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