Tiffany Burrows summarises Newington's breakfast discussion on the post-Brexit business outlook, held on Tuesday 20 November.

Background

All eyes have been firmly on Westminster over the past week following the Prime Minister’s return from Brussels, draft Withdrawal Agreement in hand.

Since then, Mrs May has had to contend with a barrage of discontent with the deal, including from within her own Cabinet. She has weathered he resignations of her second Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab MP, and Work and Pensions Secretary, Esther McVey MP, with a string of junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries following suit. The Westminster Bubble began to wait with bated breath for the resignations of other Brexiteer Cabinet members – Gove, Mordaunt, Fox, Leadsom, and Grayling – that never came. Instead, this “pizza club” group of five have supposedly committed to changing the deal from within the Cabinet, rather than joining their colleagues on the backbenches.

Cue the European Research Group (ERG), headed by arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, springing into action. Mr Rees-Mogg promptly submitted his letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister to 1922 Chair Sir Graham Brady MP, setting off a flurry of speculation that scores would follow, triggering a formal vote of no confidence.

Did I mention that this has all happened in a couple of days?

Event

When no such challenge was announced, journalists soon took to Twitter, asking if anyone had seen the elusive Sir Graham. Politico’s Jack Blanchard discovered that the 1922 Chair – the “letter counter-in-chief” – would be on the panel of Newington’s breakfast discussion on Tuesday morning.

Sir Graham, Labour MP and Treasury Select Committee member Alison McGovern MP, Sunday Times Deputy Political Editor Caroline Wheeler and former Director General of the Institute of Directors Simon Walker managed to temporarily excuse themselves from the political drama for a morning to participate in our panel on the UK’s business outlook post-Brexit.

The Chair, Chris White (Newington’s Managing Director of Public Affairs) opened the discussion by asking if there has been enough thinking about the post-Brexit business environment. Alison McGovern highlighted that the political declaration on the post-transition arrangements is “flimsy”, reminding the audience that what the Prime Minister has brought back is not *the* deal – but merely the legal preparations for leaving.

McGovern said it’s pretty clear that Labour will vote against the deal. She argued the case for a "People’s Vote" in the event of Commons deadlock on the Withdrawal Agreement.

As expected, a healthy debate developed between McGovern and Sir Graham. The latter described himself as a “mainstream Brexiteer”, who wants the UK to be positive and optimistic about the future. In the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal, Brady said a series of subsequent mini deals would be pursued. He expressed hope that a slightly different agreement will be on the table when the Commons votes in a few weeks’ time. From his point of view, “a Canada +++ deal is there for us to take”, given that key EU figures are receptive to the arrangement.

The UK has recently slipped a couple of places in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, and the panel were asked what, in a post-Brexit context, can we do to rectify this and restore the UK’s prominence in such rankings. Simon Walker claimed that the UK is still one of the best places to do business, adding that what is absolutely critical is maintaining a flexible labour market, as this is what attracts companies and minimises unemployment. He highlighted the resilience of the business community – pointing out that, whilst business does not like uncertainty, it is getting used to it.

Sir Graham insisted that maintain a liberal market economy is essential. McGovern, though, said there was a "strange dichotomy" that those who argue for an open, liberal market economy are the same people who advocated for leaving the largest open, liberal market economic bloc in the world. 

On the UK’s employment record, Brady asserted that it is not just that more jobs are being created, but that more jobs are moving up the pay scale. McGovern agreed that more jobs have been created, but disputed the fact that these jobs paid more, and stated that there was very little prospect of training and progression. Applying the Brexit lens, McGovern said that whilst the financial crisis was a financial services issue demanding a political response, Brexit is a political crisis that business must respond to.

McGovern pointed out that Brexit is all-consuming, and is therefore taking focus away from the real issues threatening the UK’s post-Brexit business outlook, one of which she identified as the skills gap – “whatever happens with Brexit, we have to get a grip on further education”. This sentiment was echoed by Caroline Wheeler, who said for too long there has been too much focus on university, and it is important that we break down that stigma.

In response to a question from Newington’s Christine Quigley on EU migrants and the language recently used by the PM (“queue jumping”), he conceded that he would have liked it to have been absolutely clear from the outset (during the campaign and immediately after the referendum) that the lives, status and rights of those EU migrants living in the UK were secure. Walker added that business has long been attracted to hiring talent from the EU, not solely due to their skillsets, but also their motivation to work.

Returning to political matters, the elephant in the room (or rather the 48 elephants) was addressed at the end of the discussion, with Brady’s response proving quite illuminating. Sir Graham stated that it’s quite instructive that the threshold for a no-confidence vote hasn’t been reached yet. He explained that whilst there will always be subdivisions within the Conservative Party, the vast majority of his colleagues are constructive, and he doesn’t think any of them want to risk “bequeathing a Marxist government to the nation”.

So what happens next?

For now, May is escaping Westminster, returning to Brussels and attempting the impossible; mollifying her Cabinet, her party, Parliament and the EU at the same time. No one said it was easy, right?