General Election 2019: Brexit and beyond

Ian Baxter

Businesses across a variety of sectors are desperate for clarity and certainty over Brexit, but will the UK’s future path become clearer after the General Election? Ian Baxter, chairman of Nottingham-based Baxter Freight, offers his thoughts.

Whilst I empathise with many Britons who feel exhausted by the very thought of a general election, the fact remains – we need a new House of Commons if we are to ever break the Brexit deadlock. People need to vote to decide what our future relationship with the European Union looks like.

As a business, Baxter Freight makes no comment as to whether Brexit is positive or negative. However, because businesses need certainty to plan and to invest, what we do say is that we need to bring matters to a conclusion as soon as possible.

We are firmly of the view that leaving the EU without a deal would be the least desirable outcome (at least in the short and medium term) and would be damaging to our customers and our economy. Luckily this now seems the least likely outcome because:

A vote for the Conservatives means pushing forward with the current Brexit deal agreed by the EU in October.

A vote for the Liberal Democrats would be a vote for a second referendum and an attempt to stop Brexit.

A vote for Labour is a vote to negotiate a new Labour deal with closer alignment to the EU followed by a second referendum to settle the matter.

Ultimately, if the outcome is a Conservative or Labour-agreed Brexit deal, to agree a free trade agreement and prepare all the arrangements before December 2020 seems an incredibly tall order. We expect that the Brexit process will extend beyond that.

Moving beyond Brexit, as a business we would urge all political parties to get serious about developing Britain’s infrastructure with more investment in roads, rail, airports, ports and broadband. We need to move forward on long awaited projects like the third runway at Heathrow and HS2.

Moreover, I’ve long argued that start-ups and small businesses need help with business rates especially if we are to protect our high streets from further decline and promote growth.

Overall, our new government needs to ensure Britain is right up there as one of the best places to live, work and invest. Our public services will never get the resources they need and deserve if we don’t encourage more British people and overseas investors to start and develop businesses here.

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