Sunday, February 19, 2023
No Brexit bonus
The Independent reports that a cabinet minister has admitted what most of us have worked out for ourselves, that Brexit has harmed investment in the UK by creating new barriers to doing business.
The paper says that Mel Stride’s comments come as a string of top business leaders have ditched the Tories for Labour, citing the government’s weak economic record and internal turmoil:
Speaking on Tuesday Mr Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said he accepted that new “frictions” between the UK and the EU “will have an impact”.
Asked if Brexit had hit business investment, Mr Stride told the BBC: “I think if you have a situation where you create frictions between yourself and your major trading partners, I think you have to accept that that will have an impact.”
His comments come after Paul Drechsler, former CBI president and ex-government skills tsar, told The Independent that Tory turmoil was damaging investment and Labour was now winning the argument among businesses.
Mr Drechsler, a former adviser to the former prime minister David Cameron, also blamed Brexit and the Tory chaos afterwards for reducing the willingness of firms to invest in Britain.
He slammed the government’s lawbreaking during Brexit talks, as well as the government’s plan to purge the statute books of British laws that originated in Brussels.
“If there’s one thing you could depend on in the UK for centuries it was adherence to the rule of law but over the past small number of years we’ve prorogued parliament, we’ve rejected international treaties we’ve just signed,” Mr Drechsler told BBC Radio’s World at One on Tuesday.
“We’ve talked about our judges as enemies of the people and now we’re about to bin thousands of EU laws without having any alternative for business to rely on. It’s self-evident that the trend lying up to 2016 has shifted significantly over the past six years.”
Some honesty from a government minister on Brexit at last.
The paper says that Mel Stride’s comments come as a string of top business leaders have ditched the Tories for Labour, citing the government’s weak economic record and internal turmoil:
Speaking on Tuesday Mr Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said he accepted that new “frictions” between the UK and the EU “will have an impact”.
Asked if Brexit had hit business investment, Mr Stride told the BBC: “I think if you have a situation where you create frictions between yourself and your major trading partners, I think you have to accept that that will have an impact.”
His comments come after Paul Drechsler, former CBI president and ex-government skills tsar, told The Independent that Tory turmoil was damaging investment and Labour was now winning the argument among businesses.
Mr Drechsler, a former adviser to the former prime minister David Cameron, also blamed Brexit and the Tory chaos afterwards for reducing the willingness of firms to invest in Britain.
He slammed the government’s lawbreaking during Brexit talks, as well as the government’s plan to purge the statute books of British laws that originated in Brussels.
“If there’s one thing you could depend on in the UK for centuries it was adherence to the rule of law but over the past small number of years we’ve prorogued parliament, we’ve rejected international treaties we’ve just signed,” Mr Drechsler told BBC Radio’s World at One on Tuesday.
“We’ve talked about our judges as enemies of the people and now we’re about to bin thousands of EU laws without having any alternative for business to rely on. It’s self-evident that the trend lying up to 2016 has shifted significantly over the past six years.”
Some honesty from a government minister on Brexit at last.
