Brexit Bear’s post May-Day musings

02 May 2017

The British Chambers of Commerce has warned politicians that the best Brexit deal "won't be worth the paper it's written on" if ministers neglect the economy and fail to address the UK’s skills shortage. The BCC urged all parties to focus on five key areas - Brexit, devolution, the business environment, infrastructure and trade – and urged policymakers to foster a "globally competitive business environment" with a stable tax system and no new upfront taxes on businesses for the next five years. BCC director-general Adam Marshall added that there should be a commitment to delivering “frictionless” future trade arrangements with the EU (if only).

Of course, the EU-staged leaks that the UK “doesn’t understand” how Brussels works, or appreciated how we will be required to negotiate is symptomatic of the haughty attitude problem that allowed David Cameron to get us into this swamp. It is not for Junkers and co to presume to tell us how to negotiate any more than it is for us to tell them. Cue ex- Chancellor Nigel Lawson who said in the Daily Telegraph that Theresa May should be prepared to walk away from EU negotiations, predicting Europe will offer a bad deal. The former chancellor also said the UK should loosen tax rules and simplify the system, which is currently putting SMEs at a disadvantage. The government should "get away" from corporation tax he added: "Small businesses don't have the opportunity to shunt their profits to whatever jurisdiction in the world has the lowest tax rate. It's not a question of [being] aggressive, it's just having a tax system which has as low as possible tax rates and is as uncomplicated [as possible], a degree of simplification. This is not airy fairy theory, because I did it."