Business views mixed ahead of Thursday’s referendum
BUSINESS leaders in the Liverpool City Region have expressed mixed views over whether they would prefer the UK to remain or leave the EU, ahead of Thursday’s crucial referendum.
Speaking at a Liverpool City Region round table event hosted by TheBusinessDesk and supported by MSIF, chief executive of the not-for-profit group Professional Liverpool John Hall said he believed opinions would vary among his organisation’s members.
“My guess is that the bigger organisations will be voting to stay in, and some of the smaller ones would maybe voting to come out,” he said.
“Speaking personally, I’m an outer. It’s an organisation which is a political body that hasn’t filed a set of audited accounts for 18 years. If a company (director) did that they’d be struck off. Members can go up to £115,000 on their expenses without any challenge, and I just think it’s a dinosaur.”
However, Robert Hough, chairman of Liverpool City Region LEP, said the unknown consequences of a Brexit were “quite difficult to appreciate”.
“Therefore in my view it’s a risk not worth taking, because I’m risk averse by nature,” he said. But he went on: “I don’t think one would join the EU in its present form by choice now, but that’s where we are.”
Shulah Jones, project lead at Port Academy Liverpool and head of business strategy at the Hugh Baird College in Bootle said as an education provider, her organisations did not have a view on the referendum, but she said her personal views were similar to Hough’s – that it was a risk not taking.
“But I am incredibly excited about the fact that it’s started a debate and that it’s actually filtering through to our younger students now, who are seeing the politics is relevant. That can only be a good thing, regardless of the outcome.”
Stuart Taylor, a director of St Helens-based Ena Shaw, a curtain and soft furnishings manufacturer employing 280 people said, from a personal point of view, the question being put in the referendum – should we remain or should we leave – is the wrong one.
“The right question would be ‘should we revert back to being a trading block that drops tariffs and allows free trade and ease of access,” he said. In those circumstances, the answer would be a clear yes from me.
“The problem is if we say yes now, we’ll never get the right question or answer. My concern is that more integrated we become, it will get worse, more political and with higher budgets. And the reality is, non of us have ever voted for any of that.”
Ian McCarthy, director of the International Festival for Business 2016, currently taking place in the Exhibition Centre Liverpool, until July 1, said it was important to get the balance right between the technical considerations over the “rules of the club” versus the strategic benefits of the alliances”.
“For me the challenges – environmental, economic and social – have to be addressed at an international level,” he said. “It’s a club we will leave potentially and want to rejoin to have a discussion.
“Others will continue to have those debates. I think the benefits of that free trade block are immeasurable almost. To risk those would be a step into the dark.”
