In an electorate that so far seems distinctly underwhelmed by the election campaign, there can be few constituencies more unhappy than the business community. As delegates at this week’s CBI conference listened to the three party leaders set out their stall, the disquiet was palpable. The one statement that drew a brief cheer was Jo Swinson’s pledge to “stop Brexit on day one” of a Lib Dem-led government. Yet many company bosses grudgingly admitted afterwards that the Conservatives would still get their vote as “the lesser of two evils” compared to Labour.
This approach is topsy-turvy. The biggest issue in this election for business, and the most important dividing line between the two main parties, is Britain’s future relationship with Europe. Much as the party leaders seek to change the subject and talk about just about anything else, the options are a disastrous rupture with the EU as soon as next year under Boris Johnson; and a closer alignment with the possibility of continued membership under Jeremy Corbyn. It may be an invidious choice, but it is the only real one available.
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To make this argument is not to belittle the very substantial objections that any right-thinking businessperson will raise to Labour’s manifesto when it is published this week. Large-scale nationalisation, punitive taxation and a massively enhanced role for the state are not going to revive the increasingly moribund economy. On the contrary, such a programme could be the final straw for potential investors who are already sitting on their hands due to Brexit uncertainty.
Two arithmetical realities
Yet these concerns need to be set against two arithmetical realities. First, the outcome of this contest will be unusually binary. If the Conservatives gain a majority, Johnson’s utterly rotten Brexit deal will pass and the government will be on the impossible mission of securing a comprehensive trade deal with Europe in just 11 months – likely to result in a no-deal disaster. If they fail to win a majority, a new Prime Minister will negotiate for a softer Brexit and put the choice between the resulting deal and remaining in the EU to a new referendum. That, for business, should be the overwhelming preference.
The second reason to focus on the Europe issue rather than Labour’s other, less agreeable plans is what the polls are unanimously telling us about the chances of Corbyn winning a majority on December 12. They are, as the doyen of psephologists John Curtice put it last week, “as close to zero as one can safely say it to be”. So in terms of real impact on the economy, the alternatives are a Conservative government hell-bent on damaging economic relations with our largest trading partner and a hung parliament in which charting a softer course on Europe will be the principal aim.
If it were possible to vote for a hung parliament, that would surely be the box where business would put its cross. But absent that option, the sensible course is to vote for the candidate who has the best chance of defeating the Conservative. There will be some constituencies where a Lib Dem or SNP candidate or a representative of the “Unite to Remain” coalition will be that person. But in most cases, the best hope for pushing the Tories out will still be Labour.
That means that even businesspeople who deplore everything else the main opposition party stands for may need to put those concerns aside when they get to the polling booth. Maintaining close economic ties with Europe is what matters most for the economy. Whatever he says now, under Johnson that will prove impossible. Under any other government, it will be close to guaranteed.
