The Government has been accused of pursuing a "worst of all worlds" deal with the EU that's based on "ideology" after a new report exposed the paltry returns to Britain.
Brexit think tank Facts4EU, in collaboration with Stand for our Sovereignty and CIBUK.Org, crunched HMRC data released last week on the number of businesses importing and exporting goods in 2025.
The input-output ratio leans heavily in the EU's favour, the analysis found, with only 1.9 per cent of all British businesses exporting goods to the EU, yet 98.1 per cent of them would be subject to a thicket of EU laws and regulations.
The findings, shared exclusively with GB News, cast fresh doubt over the Government's insistence on ever-closer, dynamic alignment with the EU’s Single Market.
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According to the HMRC, 1.9 per cent of all UK businesses were exporting goods to the EU in 2025.
This means 98 per cent of all UK businesses aren’t affected by additional paperwork the EU Commission places on goods exports from the UK.
However, due to the Government’s EU re-set, 100 per cent of all UK businesses will have extra costs and rules imposed.
Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith told GB News: "These figures blow the Government’s strategy out of the water.
"Just two per cent of British businesses export goods to the EU yet Keir Starmer wants to shackle the other 98 per cent domestic businesses to Brussels’s bureaucratic rulebook, with no vote, no voice, and no way out."
Overall, fewer than eight per cent of all UK business employers export goods to the EU, meaning around 92 per cent of businesses who employ people sell nothing to EU27 countries.
This equates to only 108,136 businesses out of all 5,690,265 businesses across the UK, who are involved in exporting goods to the EU.
Of the 362,992 businesses importing or exporting goods during 2025, 106,620 of businesses were moving goods to or from EU countries only.
This decreased by 2,343 or two per cent, with 144,381 of businesses moving goods to or from non‑EU countries only, in an increase by 12,233 or nine per cent.
The chart showing employers exporting
|BREXIT FACTS 4 EU
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Just over 108,000 businesses export to the European Union
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Andrew Griffith said Labour 'can't even U-turn properly' | HOUSE OF COMMONS Mr Griffiths said: "I spent 25 years building businesses; this Government has spent the last year taxing them, regulating them and now signing our sovereignty away to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
"Labour’s 'EU Reset' is a Trojan Horse surrender of powers that rightly belong with Parliament, just as they do in the way other sovereign countries do.
"The Conservatives will oppose it at every turn."