Doing Business amid Brexit Chaos
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 December 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Businesses are getting exasperated by the uncertainty over whether and how the UK will leave the EU in three-and-a-half months' time. Britain faces three options - either Prime Minister Theresa May's painstakingly negotiated withdrawal deal, or a traumatic "no deal" Brexit, or the humiliation of cancelling Brexit altogether. None of the three options commands clear majority support either in the UK parliament or among the British public. And as the clock ticks down to 29 March 2019, businesses are hurriedly preparing for all possible scenarios.Manuela Saragosa speaks to Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt; Dr Gemma Tetlow, chief economist at think tank the Institute for Government; and Jacob Thundil, founder of British coconut products exporter Cocofina.
(Picture: A container ship at the port of Felixstowe, UK; Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuel Saragossa. Coming up, how business |
| 0:07.5 | navigates apparently endless Brexit uncertainty. I love the products. I really want to distribute it. |
| 0:13.6 | But now, you know, it's becoming a point of, oh, you know, there's too much uncertainty. I don't know if I want to do |
| 0:19.3 | business with you. It's just too hard. Let's just delay, delay, delay. Brexit planning has taken over pretty much all of government |
| 0:26.3 | business too in the UK. But we'll hear how it's also racking up administrative costs in other EU |
| 0:31.8 | countries, such as the Netherlands. In November 2017, we advised the government and parliament to prepare for a hard Brexit. |
| 0:39.5 | At that time, everyone looked at us and thought we were crazy. |
| 0:42.3 | But right now, the outcome is very uncertain. |
| 0:45.6 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:51.5 | The road to Brexit is long, winding and full of obstacles. It may not even lead to Brexit. |
| 0:58.1 | The latest is that the British Prime Minister Theresa May may well be removed from her post. |
| 1:03.0 | She faces a vote of no confidence in her leadership later on today. |
| 1:06.7 | Members of Parliament in the UK could vote to oust her because they don't like the exit deal she's negotiated with the EU. |
| 1:13.0 | So a pretty chaotic situation. |
| 1:15.7 | It may be that she survives and her Brexit deal survives. |
| 1:18.8 | It may be that they don't. |
| 1:20.5 | Anything could happen. |
| 1:22.0 | In a moment, how business navigates this sort of uncertainty. |
| 1:25.8 | But first, what sort of support is there for Prime Minister |
| 1:28.4 | May's Brexit deal among businesses in the EU? Specifically, business in Germany, the EU's biggest |
| 1:34.1 | economy. Do they like it? Do they want it change too? Wachim Lang is the Director-General of Germany's |
| 1:40.3 | BDI, the country's industry association, equivalent to the CBI here in the UK. |
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