Commercial news round-up: customs union, business leaders desert Trump over white nationalist sympathies, boardroom diversity, Toblerones

It’s all kicking off, isn’t it? On this side of the Atlantic, EU officials, hard-line Eurosceptics and everyone caught in the middle are arguing vociferously about what economic benefits Britain can and cannot have after Brexit. Meanwhile, across the pond business leaders are running for the hills from a president who is giving cover to unreconstructed, swastika-waving Nazis currently taking to the streets to howl their rage at the existence of black people, Jewish people, women, liberals and pretty much the rest of humanity. Here is your round-up of commercial news and insights from another crazy week on planet Earth.

• The UK government has confirmed that Britain will leave the customs union – the European Union’s tariff-free trading area – as a consequence of Brexit. The news was met with dismay from many UK businesses, which rely on tariff-free access to manufacturing parts from across the trading bloc to support high-end British industries, such as car manufacturing. Recognising this, the government has said that although we are leaving ‘the’ customs union, we still want to be part of ‘a’ customs union – even if we have to pay the European Union for access in a temporary arrangement. For his part, top EU official Guy Verhofstadt maintains that frictionless trade is now a “fantasy”.
• In other Brexit news, major British companies have been informed that a lack of diversity in their boardrooms could hinder efforts to establish trade links with non-EU countries once the country has left the European Union. Raj Tulsiani, whose company Green Park has published a report on the subject, said: “In light of the [United Kingdom’s] desire to increase trade with non-EU countries, the ongoing inability of our leading companies to attract and retain leaders from east Asian and African backgrounds should be a matter for serious concern.”
• In the United States, Donald Trump has been forced to disband two White House business councils after their members – prominent US business leaders and executives – began resigning in droves and denouncing the president’s decision to defend rampaging Nazis, white supremacists and other assorted fascists and far right racists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• A sign of the times? Even the makers of our beloved Toblerones are in conflict, in this case with Poundland (the discount chain, not post-Brexit Britain) over the latter’s Twin Peaks chocolate bar, which exhibits a similar triangular shape to a Toblerone. For its part, Poundland has defended the copycat bar on the grounds that the Toblerone shape is not distinctive enough to be a valid trademark, citing the new version with fewer chunks released last year in response to the fallout of Brexit.
• Let’s end on a happier note – this piece from the BBC explores the history of the department store and how these “cathedrals of commerce” not only changed the way we shop, but helped to emancipate women. 

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