[neilwilson]

All barriers are about favouring internal producers over external producers. That's sort of the point of them. And it's been like this for the rest of the world for a very long time. All we've done is added the EU countries to the pile - levelling the playing field and sorting out anomalies on the way.

But, importantly, processing these things is somebody's job - which increases economic activity and GDP. So it's not as straightforward as it sounds - particularly when there is a systemic shortage of jobs, and there is a floating exchange rate which balances the effect in any case.

The purpose of these changes is to push trade through Online market places - who sort the VAT for you.