FOR anyone who still needs convincing about the grave consequences of the Brexit vote, a survey this week from the Federation of Small Businesses should make for essential reading.
This survey provides a raft of numbers highlighting just how integrated Scotland and the UK as a whole are with the rest of the European Union. This degree of happy and advantageous integration appears to be recognised far more by people north of the Border than in most other parts of the UK.
Sadly, it is not recognised among the blinkered Brexiters. Even after so many months since last June’s vote, both they and the erstwhile Remainers in the Conservative Government who have joined them seem to have nothing more up their sleeves than harking back to the days of Empire.
Such nostalgia seems to dominate the UK Government’s feeble attempts to convince us that leaving the EU will somehow boost the economy. Unfortunately, for them, those days have long gone. Those ships have sailed.
Amid the bluff and bluster of the bawling Brexit brigade, the survey from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is a most welcome and important illustration of the actuality of the situation in which we find ourselves.
It highlights the crucial contribution that citizens from other EU countries make to the UK economy: a contribution that some of the Brexiters might not want to acknowledge but one that is very large indeed.
The other thing the FSB survey does is vaporise any misplaced notion that it is somehow only big businesses, with major exports to other EU countries, which are being hit hard by Brexit. That is not to understate in any way the huge effect on large businesses. Rather, the FSB report provides a timely reminder that hundreds of thousands of UK businesses across the size spectrum are deeply affected by the folly of Brexit.
The Scottish findings of the FSB survey are particularly interesting, showing that businesses north of the Border are even more dependent on workers from other EU member states than the UK as a whole.
The survey reveals 26 per cent of small employers in Scotland have at least one non-UK, EU citizen among their staff, compared with about 21 per cent in the UK as a whole. This proportion rises to 41 per cent in the Highlands.
Some sectors are very dependent on staff from other EU countries. About 45 per cent of Scottish small businesses in the tourism and leisure sector have at least one non-UK, EU worker.
However, the FSB survey also shows a fairly even spread of skill levels among the non-UK, EU staff who are so vital to Scotland’s small businesses.
Specifically, the survey shows 48 per cent of Scottish small businesses with non-UK, EU staff employ these workers mainly in mid-skilled roles, which require specialist or technical skills and training, such as office managers, construction workers, mechanics, care workers and hairdressers.
The survey reveals 21 per cent of small businesses in Scotland employ non-UK, EU citizens mainly in higher-skilled roles, such as accountants, engineers and graphic designers. And it finds 31 per cent of small businesses north of the Border rely on non-UK, EU workers mainly in lower-skilled roles, such as waiters, farm workers and security guards.
The FSB survey also shows that 89 per cent of small businesses in Scotland with non-UK, EU staff hired these employees when they were already living in the UK.
Referring to some people’s perception of firms’ hiring of non-UK, EU citizens, FSB head of devolved nations Colin Borland said: “This is sometimes characterised as employers going out and trawling Eastern Europe for labour and wholesale importing [it].
“[The survey] underlines the fact we are recruiting from people who are already in the UK labour pool.”
The FSB said it was vital for Scottish businesses that non-UK, EU workers were given the right to remain in the country after Brexit, including employees who arrive during the exit negotiations.
It is also asking the UK Government to put in place a “transition period”, during which existing immigration arrangements would continue after Brexit, until a new system was in place.
Mr Borland noted firms’ belief that such a transition period would have to last for more than three years.
The FSB is to be commended for these sensible suggestions to mitigate Brexit-related damage to its members and the broader economy, and for urging that any new immigration policy is “easy to comply with for employers and responsive to the needs of the Scottish economy”.
It is also calling on the UK Government to work with the Scottish Government. In this regard, the UK Government might learn something. After all, the Scottish Government has so far shown a far greater knowledge of the actual consequences of leaving the EU, thankfully steering well clear of the strange, imaginary world of some of the pro-Brexit camp.
Meantime, it is crucial to recognise that those non-UK, EU workers already here could easily decide to take their labours and talents elsewhere. And who could blame them? Why should they endure protracted uncertainty, while they wait for the whims of Prime Minister Theresa May and her Government?
Garry Clark, at Scottish Chambers of Commerce, last week cited “anecdotal stories” about people from other EU member states already returning to their home countries.
So the warning signals are flashing brightly. However, the Conservative Government does not seem to be waking up to the importance of guaranteeing non-UK, EU workers’ rights so that the economic damage of Brexit can be mitigated. Such action is also crucial to providing some degree of reassurance to firms big and small.
The FSB survey highlights the need for immediate action on this front.
It reveals nearly one in five small employers in Scotland would consider closing their businesses if Brexit creates additional barriers to recruiting citizens of other EU countries. Meanwhile, 37 per cent of small employers north of the Border would consider reducing their operations in such circumstances, and 12 per cent would contemplate moving their businesses abroad.
It really is time for the Conservative Government to stop sleepwalking towards its fantasy land. Well, well past time in fact.
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