IF no deal means leaving the single market and the customs union and relying on World Trade Organisation rules, then only two per cent of the members in a recent British Chambers of Commerce UK wide survey agreed.
The survey suggests Theresa May’s Government has some work to do to bring British business alongside her team’s negotiating objectives for Brexit. Conducted in the week after the General Election, the survey showed only 24 per cent agreed that business interests were being prioritised in the negotiations, and nearly two-thirds believed the Government’s negotiating objectives had to change.
Those objectives currently suggest the UK would leave the single market and the customs union, and replace them with a comprehensive free trade agreement and customs arrangements.
Amongst responders who want to see a change in objectives there is some debate about the relative merits of the single market and the customs union, with a very slight advantage to avoiding tariffs and hard borders through the customs union.
The Scottish sample from the survey showed the strongest enthusiasm for staying in both of any region, while in the Midlands and the North East commitment to the existing Government objectives is the strongest.
Of course a survey like this only gives an insight into what the UK business community would like the Government’s negotiating outcomes to be. It doesn’t really help explain any better how the UK Government would actually reach those outcomes.
I was personally reminded just how challenging the UK’s position is by a conversation with a Berlin SDP politician during a visit to Glasgow by representatives from the city’s state parliament last month.
Sitting next to him at a welcome dinner, we inevitably turned to Brexit, and he was perfectly clear what he thought the outcome should be - as hard a Brexit as possible. Protecting the principles of the European Union was far more important than any trade deal.
As Scottish Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop recently said in an address at Strathclyde University, the European Union caravan is moving on. The next phase of development of an apparently resurgent European Union is likely to overshadow any EU concerns about the outcomes of Brexit.
Threatening a no deal outcome may not have the impact on our EU partners we might expect and we may end up with the hard Brexit that very few businesses want.
Stuart Patrick is the chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here