It is a modest living but for the past 20 years Ruth Butterworth has managed to turn a passion for vintage French decorative items into a profitable livelihood, scouring France’s brocante flea markets and antique trade shows for items to resell back in the UK.
But since Brexit took the UK out of the EU’s single market in January, Butterworth — like many small-time “white van” antiques dealers in Britain — has found herself on the wrong side of a complex trade border that she doesn’t have either the energy or appetite to overcome.
“Brexit has just finished it for me, I’m getting out of the business,” she said while attending to customers browsing her collections of white faience pottery and benetiers — holy water fonts — at her pitch at last month’s Ardingly Antiques Fair in West Sussex, near England’s south coast.
It is a heartbreaking decision for 56-year-old Butterworth, but one that plenty of other stallholders at the Ardingly fair say they are also taking as they grapple with the need for customs declarations, value added tax payments and all the…
