The boss of a Derbyshire lace manufacturer which can trace its history back three centuries says Brexit has put his company on the brink because of levies imposed upon it.
Chris Mason, the managing director of The Cluny Lace Company, says that after a recent audit, HMRC decided to levy an 8 per cent duty on the return of all the lace it manufacturers in the UK, sent to France for dyeing, and then gets back for further finishing.
Mason made the revelation in a letter to the Financial Times, which has since gone viral.
He said the company faces being “killed off by our own side in a couple of years” because of a levy that has been backdated to when Brexit came into being.
“We have spent more than 200 years building our business, fought for 30 years against the global textile trend of moving to the Far East and have now been killed off by our own side. We all lose”, he said.
Cluny Lace is an independent Leavers Lace manufacturer, set up in 1845. It is run by the eighth and ninth generation of the Mason family.
No other manufacturer in the world produces the same range of patterns and these patterns are unique to Cluny Lace Company, according to the firm’s website.
Related: Badenoch downplays claims UK-Asia trade pact will only boost economy by 0.08%