British businesses are becoming more and more concerned that a deal with the EU might not get done, says Sky’s Adam Parsons.
A “no-deal” Brexit is a curious thing, like the shark in Jaws.
Lots of people worry about it, even though nobody is quite sure what it looks like. They like to talk about it, but they fear causing a panic.
It may disappear, never to be seen again – or it might come along, and bite us. Or perhaps the shark will turn out to be a friendly, helpful dolphin.
Over the past few weeks, I have spoken to dozens of people across the spectrum of British life about how they’re preparing for the possibility of the UK leaving the European Union without a deal.
These people range across big and small businesses, trade organisations, advisers, public bodies, academics and members of the public who’ve found themselves embroiled in planning for no-deal.
And all of them shared three things.
Firstly, confusion. The blunt, incontrovertible truth is that, with less than five months to go until the UK is due to leave the EU, nobody is sure what a no-deal Brexit would look like.
It could be chaotic or controlled, good-natured or acrimonious. We might embrace the terms of the World Trade Organisation, or come up with some other plan. Frankly, nobody really knows what’s going to happen.
And that leads us to the second condition – nervousness. Most businesses get wary when they’re confronted by the unknown, and a no-deal Brexit offers uncertainty by the bucketload.
That’s hard to deal with, whether you’re a corporate giant or, for that matter, if you’re an anxious parent who worries about getting medicine for their child.
Either way, uncertainty leads to nervousness and then it turns to anxiety over the future.
And the third thing I saw, again and again, was a desire to avoid the charge of scaremongering.
The great majority of people that I spoke to said they would only have an honest conversation if it was “off the record”.
Credit: Skynews
