Introduction Offshore-wind nacelles from Newcastle, photovoltaic (PV) inverters from Cambridge, and hydrogen-electrolyser stacks manufactured in Sheffield are moving from British quaysides to power plants on every continent. International demand for renewable-energy infrastructure is expanding by double digits as governments race to achieve net-zero targets and diversify energy security. Yet the act of shipping a container [...]
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Introduction – From Free Trade to “Geoeconomic Alignment” When the United States and the United Kingdom unveiled their Economic Prosperity Deal on 8 May 2025, the headlines focused on headline-grabbing tariff cuts for cars, aerospace parts, and agricultural goods. But the real significance of the EPD lies elsewhere. Unlike a traditional free-trade agreement that sweeps [...]
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Introduction Scanners, prosthetic joints, diagnostic test kits, and surgical instruments cross the United Kingdom’s borders every day—yet the journey from factory floor to operating theatre is governed by one of the most exacting compliance regimes in global trade. Importers must demonstrate that a device satisfies the UK’s health-regulation framework and clear it through HMRC’s customs [...]
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Introduction On 10 June 2025 the United Kingdom rewrote one of the less glamorous but most influential pieces of transport regulation: the weight limit a holder of an ordinary Category B (car) licence may drive when the vehicle is zero-emission. Overnight, the legal ceiling for electric and hydrogen vans rose from 3.5 tonnes to 4.25 [...]
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Introduction – A New Digital Artery for British Commerce In June 2025 Thames Freeport, already a flagship of the UK’s freeport programme, switched on a dedicated 5G network covering its three core hubs: DP World London Gateway, the Port of Tilbury and Ford’s Dagenham manufacturing campus. Built by Verizon Business with industrial-grade hardware and edge-computing [...]
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Introduction Parcels move faster than policy, yet every package that leaves Great Britain is subject to customs law. Until now, foreign designated postal operators—think La Poste, USPS, Deutsche Post, Australia Post and their peers—have been able to lodge thousands of low-value exports each day from their extra-territorial offices of exchange (ETOEs) in London, Heathrow or [...]
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Introduction Books, journals, teaching software, and laboratory apparatus travel daily from British warehouses to classrooms and research centres abroad. Yet the apparent simplicity of loading cartons onto a pallet masks a dense network of customs rules that determine how quickly— and at what cost—those consignments cross the border. Since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, [...]
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Introduction – Why the CPTPP Matters to the United Kingdom The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, better known as the CPTPP, is one of the world’s most advanced free-trade arrangements. With eleven founding economies across Asia, Oceania and the Americas, it already accounts for roughly 15 per cent of global GDP and represents [...]
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