'A Brexit nightmare': the British businesses being pushed to breaking point

Less than a month after leaving the EU, trade is flowing so badly that small firms are moving operations abroad to survive

• Set up shop in Europe, UK businesses are told

Christophe Fricker lectures in German at the University of Bristol and adores living in England. He was born in Germany but his anglophilia became so strong after moving here that he wrote a book called 111 Grunde, England zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love England") in 2018. He selected the gardens of Cornwall, the National Portrait Gallery, the way the English use collective nouns for groups of animals (herds, packs, and so on) and their fascination with murder cases in his varied list of reasons for loving this country.

But since 1 January, Fricker has been reminded that there are also worrying things about life in England - and being outside the EU is now chief among them.

If we can't move our goods across Europe without all this palaver, a lot of companies will be in very serious trouble

Related: Set up shop in Europe, government advisers tell Brexit-hit businesses