Research published by Cambridge academics Meredith Crowley, Oliver Exton and Lu Han found that a one percentage point rise in the threat point tariff – that is, the fallback position should negotiations fail, so in this instance the rise to World Trade Organisation tariffs – reduced the growth in new exporter numbers by 1.1 percentage points, and increased the rate of quitting export markets by 0.5 percentage points.

This meant an estimated 5,221 companies did not start exporting new products to the EU in 2016 and 3,850 stopped exporting to the bloc.

As a proportion, entry would have been 5.1pc higher and exit 4.3pc lower, they found. “We estimate that the decline in entry reduced the vaalue of exports by between £226m and £1.4bn in 2016, a small total value relative to total exports to the EU in 2016 of £140bn,” said the academics.