WRITING in this newspaper Mike Forrester, the founder and now European business director of Tenbury’s largest employer called for a clear policy regarding exiting the EU following the General Election.

Mike founded Orchard Valley Foods, a highly successful business and built it from nothing, He has always been clear in believing that ‘Brexit’ would be a bad move.

His hope that the general election would at least provide some clarity has proved anything but the case. The call from the Prime Minister for backing for her negotiating position received a resounding raspberry.

Now, far from bringing clarity, the situation is even more opaque and uncertain and as everyone involved in business, whether they be running a multinational or a corner shop, knows, the worst thing for business is uncertainty.

At the heart of the problem, of course, is that the EU Referendum was like asking a family to vote for if it wanted to take a holiday without having any idea if this meant a world cruise, a fortnight in a hotel in Devon or a November weekend camped on the side of Clee Hill.

The uncertainty has real implications and perhaps especially in Ludlow and south Shropshire and Tenbury and the Teme Valley.

Health chiefs tell us that recruiting nurses and medical staff is a problem and it has already been shown that the number of nurses from the EU applying to work in the UK has fallen off the edge of a cliff.

All of us who use the NHS know that we are far more likely to find ourselves being treated by someone from the EU than to be sitting next to them in the waiting room.

So already, before negotiations have started in any meaningful way, Brexit is having a negative impact on health services with rural areas very much in the front line.

This adds to the problems of nurses and midwives leaving the profession and it seems that the Government wants to stick to the one per cent pay-increase cap, although such is the chaos that it does rather depend upon which Cabinet Member is speaking on which day.

Some businesses in our area such as agriculture and tourism also have a significant dependency on foreign workers but it is too early to know how they will be impacted.

The Government has failed to clarify the situation of workers from the EU in this country and that is a massive problem.

As Mike Forrester tells us, the past year has seen: ‘a dramatic fall in the value of the pound, causing significant inflation on imported goods, especially food where prices are rising quickly. Furthermore a notable slowdown of UK economic growth and a decline in the willingness of EU workers to come to the UK to provide their essential labour.’

It is a real mess and one that is already having an impact upon real lives including the bigger bills when we come to pay at the supermarket checkout.

But be sure this is only a beginning.

As the complexities and problems become clearer, it is hardly a surprise that even someone like Dominic Cummings, who was a mastermind behind the successful leave campaign, seems to be suggesting it may not have been such a good idea after all.

There is no shame in admitting when a mistake has been made – indeed this is what strong and mature people do.