09/04/2015
The
Mail is running a nice line about Tony Blair's "toxic intervention" in the election campaign, asserting that it has "backfired on Ed". In highlighting Labour's refusal to offer a referendum, says the paper, Blair has presented an open goal for the Tories, who are the only party to commit to a vote.
Less happy news, however, comes from
City AM which is retailing the results of a survey of business sentiment and the EU. According to the research, conducted by Vistage, 61 percent of chief executives, managing directors and owners of small businesses would vote to stay in the EU and only six percent would vote for Brexit. Close to 40 percent of those surveyed said leaving the EU would hurt their business, and 58 percent expected Brexit to slow the UK's growth rate.
Just two percent of the "business chiefs" expected their company to be better off post-Brexit and only one in ten thought the UK's growth rate would increase. Thus, the Eurosceptic case that outside the EU businesses would be unshackled from Brussels red tape and better placed to tap into new markets found little sympathy among the respondents.
Furthermore, there are plenty of other surveys of this nature, viz one
last month from the Association of Independent Professionals and Self-Employed (IPSE).
From 362 small business owners, it reported 49 percent believing that leaving the EU would be bad for their business. Losing out on clients located elsewhere in the continent and decreased access to finance opportunities are just some of the reasons that may have influenced this decision.
In contrast, just 13 percent of those surveyed deemed the effects to be good for their business, while 22 percent thought there would be no effect and 15 percent were unsure of the effect leaving the EU would have on their business.
However, as with everything, one needs to take these results with a pinch of salt. We note,
for instance, a survey undertaken by McKinsey consultants, published in January 2015, which had 34 percent of directors admitting that they fully understand their own companies' strategies, and 22 percent claimed they are aware as to how their firms created value.
Given these findings, we may take it that business opinion on the EU is similarly ill-informed. Most business owners simply imbibe the "received wisdom" and have very little understanding of the issues. But this does illustrate how much work the anti-EU movement have to do to get the business community on-side.
It does not help, mind you, when our "side" come up with simplistic notions such as the "WTO option", where we give up any idea of negotiating a trade agreement with the EU, prior to exit. Those who would wish to experiment with insanity need to ask themselves what effect this will have on voters when they are asked whether they feel comfortable about leaving the EU.
And if we can't bring business with us, there is little chance that we're ever going to get majority support.
