Neverending Brexit?

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2019

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

As the UK parliament votes to delay Brexit beyond 29 March, businesses brace for yet more uncertainty. But will the EU even be willing to grant a delay?

Manuela Saragosa speaks to companies on both sides of the English Channel. British Barley farmer Matt Culley says he now has to plant his coming year's crop with no clue whether or how he will even be able to export his produce to breweries in Germany come harvest time.

Meanwhile Chayenne Wiskerke, who runs the world's biggest onion exporting operation from the Netherlands, expresses her exasperation that with two weeks to go, every possible outcome - from delay, to cancellation, to the UK leaving without any agreement at all - remains on the table.

But fear not says David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy. He explains why he thinks a year's delay is the most likely outcome.

(Picture: A pro Brexit supporter holds up a placard that reads 'Just Leave' outside the Houses of Parliament; Credit: John Keeble/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Manuel Salagossa. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, are we heading towards a never-ending Brexit.
0:10.8	The chances are the EU will agree to a delay. What they don't want is the UK hanging around forever, still unable to make a decision asking for a year's extension every year on the same date.
0:21.3	The Brexit ball is back in the EU's court after Britain's Parliament voted in favour of delaying
0:27.5	the country's exit from the European Union. But how will the EU respond? And where does that
0:32.9	leave business? It's the uncertainty. It seems to me they're just going to kick the can down the
0:37.2	road for another two months and then we'll probably be back to where we are now.
0:41.9	That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC.
0:48.0	All business wants is certainty. All British politics keeps giving it is uncertainty in spades.
0:55.7	Yesterday, Parliament voted to delay Brexit. It's not clear how much of a delay yet,
1:00.0	and neither is it clear if the EU will even allow the UK to delay its departure beyond the scheduled date of March the 29th.
1:07.8	That's just 14 days away.
1:09.7	Parliament also voted this week against a no-deal Brexit,
1:12.9	where the UK leaves the EU without any trading agreements in place. But that's just in theory.
1:18.5	In practice, has anything really changed? Does business feel reassured by any of this week's
1:24.1	Brexit developments in the British Parliament? Annie Renison speaks on behalf of many British businesses here in the UK
1:30.0	at the Institute of Directors, where she's Head of Europe and Trade Policy.
1:35.3	That's what I feel.
1:37.7	I think we know a little bit more about what the Parliament doesn't want to do.
1:41.6	Parliament doesn't want to leave without a deal,
1:43.2	and it does want some sort of extension, but we don't know exactly what it is that it actually wants instead of no deal instead of this deal. And it's pretty frustrating. I mean, I think that there is an assumption that businesses all want this extension and they really don't. They really want this phase over and done with.
2:00.1	The only Brexit deal on the table at the moment, officially at least, is the one the UK
2:04.4	Prime Minister Theresa May has been negotiating with the EU for the past couple of years.
	...

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