Few events have had a greater impact on the UK’s chemical supply chain over the past decade than Brexit. As the UK marks ten years since the referendum, Tim Doggett, CEO of the Chemical Business Association (CBA), reflects.
Brexit has become, in many respects, the gift that keeps on taking.
According to research by the Centre for European Reform (CER), chemicals and pharmaceuticals have been among the sectors hardest hit since Brexit. Imports from the EU are estimated to have fallen by 24%, while exports to the EU have declined by 21%, highlighting the continuing impact on one of the UK’s most important industries.
The experience of businesses in the chemical supply chain reflects those findings. A CBA member survey shows that more than 70% face ongoing difficulties with importing and exporting, while 65% say those difficulties continue to affect their business operations. Overall, 63% say Brexit has had either a slightly negative or very negative impact on their business.
These are not niche concerns affecting a handful of companies, but challenges with wider implications for the UK economy and growth.
UK trade with Europe had been on an upward trend before 2016, but official figures show that compared to 2019, 2025 UK exports to the EU were down 14%, while imports were down 10%. In fact, apart from one year in the depths of the financial crisis, 2025 was the worst year for UK goods export volumes to the EU this century.
Consequences of Brexit
UK REACH, a direct consequence of Brexit, is cited by more than eight in ten CBA survey respondents as an ongoing challenge due to rising costs, regulatory uncertainty and reduced competitiveness. It is also frequently identified as one of the biggest barriers to trade facing businesses, stifling investment, innovation and growth.
While it remains one of the sector’s biggest concerns, there have at least been some signs of progress. Earlier this year, following years of delay and growing frustration across industry, DEFRA responded to the 2024 consultation on the UK REACH Alternative Transitional Registration model (ATRm).
However, significant concerns and challenges remain as the model moves towards implementation.
Prior to Brexit, industry had already paid over half a billion pounds to access EU REACH. While the costs now envisaged may be lower than those set out in DEFRA’s original UK REACH Impact Assessment – which were estimated at between £1.3 and £3.5 billion – it will still represent a significant burden, running into hundreds of millions at a time when businesses are already under intense economic pressure.
There is also still a lack of clarity on how this will work in practice, with real questions as to whether the proposed registration deadlines of 2029, 2030 and 2031, already pushed back several times, are achievable.
Maintaining momentum and continued engagement with industry will be critical to ensuring the future system is both effective and deliverable. That progress must not be derailed by further changes in Government or policy direction.
The only constant
There has been a tremendous amount of change in government during the past decade. Since the Brexit referendum, there have been seven Prime Ministers, ten DEFRA Secretaries of State and eleven appointments to the role of Business Secretary, involving ten people operating across multiple departmental structures.
Yet ten years on, revisiting the arguments of 2016 serves little purpose. Whether people voted Leave or Remain, the reality is that the UK left the EU. The question is therefore not whether we could or should have done something differently in the past, but how we move forward.
Businesses are not looking to refight old battles. They are looking for certainty, stability, and clarity. The priority therefore should be to create the conditions that allow businesses across the UK to compete, invest and grow in the years ahead.
A changing world
The post-Brexit world envisaged in 2016 has changed beyond recognition. The EU has not collapsed, the US has put up higher trade barriers and weaponised tariffs, and the rise of Asia, led by China and increasingly India, continues to reshape global manufacturing.
At the same time, war has returned to Europe on a scale few imagined following the end of the Cold War, bringing renewed and very real concerns about the continent’s security and its ability to defend itself against Russian aggression.
More broadly, growing geopolitical tensions and an increasingly divided world raise the prospect that we may already be entering a new era of great-power rivalry – a form of ‘Cold War II’ – but one that is potentially more complex, involving not only military power but also trade, technology, energy, critical raw materials and global supply chains. The assumptions that underpinned many of the political and economic choices made in 2016 therefore need to be viewed against a profoundly different geopolitical and economic landscape.
That is why, more than ever, the UK chemical supply chain should not be overlooked or taken for granted. Whether the discussion is around growth, trade, regulation, skills, industrial strategy or defence, its contribution is indispensable and the role it plays is vital to the UK’s economic prosperity, resilience and national security.
Ten years on, Brexit and its impacts remain with us. The role of the CBA remains the same: to be the voice of the UK chemical supply chain, working with Government and industry to ensure businesses have the certainty, proportionate regulation and competitive conditions they need to succeed. Whatever the political landscape, our focus must remain on supporting an industry that underpins the UK economy and everyday life.
