European Movement UK recently spoke with Rachel Wang, the founder and co-director of Chocolate Films, a production company based here in the UK.
Rachel is one of the thousands of British business owners who are paying the price for Brexit. She recently filmed a video with European Movement UK discussing precisely this issue. As the situation gets worse, her industry desperately needs the government to hear us and take action.
The impacts of Brexit are being felt across all of the UK’s industries. Throughout our campaigning, European Movement UK has spoken to many people like Rachel from across a wide variety of industries, and their collective message could not be clearer – Brexit broke our industries and rejoining the EU is the only thing that will fix them.
Back when Chocolate Films began, Chocolate Films’ staff came from all over Europe. The very best in the industry came to the UK to work with them from France, Germany, Italy and beyond.
These days, Rachel says those colleagues are gone. One by one, they decided that they needed to go home because living and working in the UK was just getting too difficult.
Brexit forced them to leave.
The UK has a long and proud artistic history. To this day, some of the most celebrated music, films, theatre and works of art continue to be created here, often by talented artists from across the globe.
But that artistic history is under threat.
It’s become harder for artists from Europe to live and work in the UK. It’s become more complicated and costly for UK based companies to work in the EU. And it’s become significantly more time consuming and expensive to trade with Europe, impacting artists’ ability to acquire materials and customers.
In short, Brexit has made being in the creative industries significantly less viable, and it’s killing the industry as a result.
The government are aware of this. Countless organisations, including European Movement UK, have loudly drawn their attention to the issues facing us and our industry.
What we need from them now is action.
Rachel’s story is not unique. People working in creative industries up and down the country are suffering under Brexit. We need the government to investigate the full extent of the damage done and then help us get through it.
We can make them listen, together. Share Rachel’s story and the stories of others in similar situations – then maybe we can get the action we so desperately need.
With thanks to Marsha de Cordova, MP for Battersea, Barbara Callender and the European Movement in Wandsworth & Merton team.