Did You Stockpile Because Of BREXIT?

For those who may not be aware, the United Kingdom held a referendum vote on its relationship to the EU back in 2016. With virtual guarantees that the United Kingdom would remain in the EU – it came as a shock that by a slim margin, more of the public had voted ‘leave’ by a majority of 52% to 48%. The impact of the surprise vote caused lots of uncertainty with UK citizens and has caused industries to become very challenged. The United Kingdom left the European Union on Jan. 31, 2020, only 10 months after its initially scheduled departure which has caused a major geopolitical shift. This caused many UK companies to panic buy their stock in order to prevent access taxes and border gridlocks. However, with COVID-19 circulating newly the globe, the organisations who stockpiled from Brexit may be in favour. 
AO World, the online electronics retailer, has stockpiled around £15m of its most popular products in the latest move by a UK company to brace for a potentially chaotic Brexit, according to Financial Times. However, it’s not just the electronics industry which is affected. The problem is that the UK currently imports around 40% of its food of which a third is from the EU. This has resulted in a large quantity of the food retail industry to work with their suppliers to plan ahead to avoid any disruption caused by Brexit. Over the last few years in the UK, Brexit has been the most talked about topic due to the uncertainty and frustration of what the future holds. The recent British vote resulted in Boris Johnson being elected as Prime Minister of the UK. With preliminary talks ongoing about Boris Johnson’s new Brexit proposals, the deal is ‘essentially impossible’ according to The Telegraph. A quote from BBC, the UK manufacturing sector contracted in May for the first time since July 2016 as stockpiling eased ahead of Brexit, an influential survey shows. The research, by IHS Markit/CIPS, said firms found difficulty convincing clients to commit to new contracts.
Border Gridlock
According to the Guardian, UK manufacturers’ stockpiling for no-deal Brexit hit record levels. This is because there was a high concern that there would be border gridlock which would slow down the process of transportation of goods globally. The concern of border gridlock was caused by no-deal Brexit which led British manufacturers to increase their stockpiling efforts. Another quote from The Guardian, ‘Britons have spent £4bn stockpiling goods in case of no-deal Brexit’. The Government’s own assessments showed that the flow of goods through the channel crossings could be reduced by 40-60%. With COVID-19 circulating the globe, many borders have severely restricted travel and made it very difficult for citizens to travel and transport packages.
UK Manufacturing
Despite uncertain economic trends, the electronic components industry within the United Kingdom may have seen a positive effect from Brexit. UK customers may...