As we saw in part 1, the ways that Brexit rips through business models are quite complex. Travelling back in time to a simpler era in 1973 before the UK joined the EEC, does not seem like a practical option for business. Cross-border trade, which was the exception back then, is now the norm. People get on planes for one-day conferences and business meetings. The simple email that was conceived inthe early 1970s  has itself been outgunned by the smartphone app. Rules are needed to govern these new practices that in themselves generate unforeseen legal complexities.  Being outside the EU will not suddenly drop the UK back into a simple system where it can pull up drawbridge and act as an island. There will be too many wires left dangling.

In part 1 of How Brexit Rips Up Business Models,  we considered the effects of a post-Brexit dual compliance regime. Here, in Part 2,  we look at some specific aspects  of  Brexit-imposed  changes to cross-border trade and trade in services.  

Read more: How Brexit rips up business models Part 2: visas for money and music

We cannot just draw a line around these islands and go back to a time past. In 1973 when Britain voted to join what was then the EEC,  the email had only just been invented and the Internet wasn’t even conceived. In 1992,  the Single Market was established and the Internet went commercial. From the mid-1990s, low-cost flights came in and little bags of salad leaves became the norm in our supermarkets. Since then, business has changed to an inter-connected model,  underpinned  by electronic communications and laws designed to support cross-border trade. Standards matter, not just within State borders, but across borders. The rupture from the Single Market created by Brexit in any form  will have massive consequences for industries,  both manufacturing and services, that have based their business model on the EU legal framework.

This article – part 1 of 2 – explores the how  withdrawing from the EU Single Market will result in  a dual-compliance regime.  It draws on EU Preparedness Notifications and UK government ‘no deal’ notices, as well as announcements, media reports and statements from a range of British-based businesses.

Read more: How Brexit rips up business models Part 1: putting back barriers

How does an obscure article in the Lisbon Treaty obfuscate Britain's efforts to formulate a post-Brexit relationship with the European Union? And what does this have to do with dead parrots? 

It was Margaret Thatcher who famously replayed Monty Python’s  ‘dead parrot’ sketch at the Tory party conference 28 years ago in 1990. This week, as the Conservative Party gathered in Birmingham for its annual get-together,  it would seem a dead parrot is once again at the centre of the debate.

Read more: Norwegian Blue or Super-Canada - is there any life in this parrot?