Nottingham expert claims wine will become ‘considerably more expensive’ because of Brexit

Video: Gauntley’s Chris Goodrum explains how Brexit will affect wine on Notts Tonight

A Nottingham expert says wine will be “considerably more expensive in a couple of years” because of Brexit.

Chris Goodrum from fine wine merchant Gauntley’s claims that the price of wines from abroad will rise because of a drop in exchange rates, producers increasing prices and shipping costs.

It comes after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 on Wednesday (March 29), meaning the UK has started the formal process of leaving the European Union.

“For the consumer, if we get some kind of trade deal in place, whether it’s a free trade deal of if there’s some kind of tariff, nobody knows,” Chris said.

“If you have to fall back on world trade organisation tariffs, I believe food is currently at 22 per cent so one can imagine wine will be something similar so wine will increase by 10-15 per cent.

“The Government take their cut through duty so wine will be considerably more expensive in a couple of years time; some wines could also become too expensive to stock.”

Video: Politics lecturer Dr Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton on what will happen next

Politics lecturer Dr Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton told Notts Tonight elections on the continent could delay the process of negotiating to leave the union.

The Nottingham Trent University expert said: “Up until now, the UK has said it wants to start preliminary negotiations but the EU have said ‘no way, we’re not doing that’, so we’re going to have to start talking about the single market, the customs union and tariffs.

“Also, very importantly, the rights of EU citizens in the UK and also UK citizens living in the EU and we have to do all of this within two years.

“This is something that hasn’t really happened before and no-one is clear about it – the UK has not got a great team of negotiators at the moment because it’s not something that we are used to.

“There are so many issues to unpick that it can’t realistically be done in two years and looking at it, we probably only have a year and a half because the big decisions will not be made until after the French elections in April and May and the German election in September.”

Dr Mokhefi-Ashton’s thoughts on what will happen next

  • The UK has two years to leave the EU this it isn’t realistically possible
  • The EU has rejected the UK’s request of preliminary negotiations to leave
  • The market will fall and rise with each stage of negotiations
  • The EU will play ‘hardball’

Dr Mokhefi-Ashton thinks that there will be ‘a lot of market volatility’ until companies know whether the UK will have access to markets.

He said: “When you ask people if they voted to leave the single market and the customs union, an awful lot of people will ask what they are.

“Big companies might be reluctant to invest and they might say we will leave off until we know exactly what we’re investing in.

“The market will fall and rise with each stage of negotiations and we could see further drops in the pound which could mean imports will be more expensive and inflation will continue to rise.”

Pro-Brexit MPs including Anne-Marie Trevelyan have previously claimed leaving the EU will mean prices for supermarket goods could actually come down.

She wrote in the Mirror last year: “The independent House of Commons Library has concluded that EU membership actually increases the costs of consumer goods, stating that the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy artificially inflates food prices and that consumer prices across a range of other goods imported from outside the EU are raised as a result of the tariff barriers the EU places on goods from outside of the EU.”