Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Why business and the City should speak out against a second referendum

Parliament is deadlocked. The cabinet is split down the middle and Brussels won’t compromise on the deal it has already offered to the Prime Minister. As the clock ticks steadily towards March 29th, there seems little way out of the impasse surrounding our tortured exit from the European Union. No one can agree on how to leave, or how to stay either. Against that backdrop, it is probably no great surprise that a second referendum is gaining momentum. It is at least a way out of the mess, and possibly a more decisive one than any of the alternatives.

Theresa May has spoken out against that today, even if many of her Cabinet ministers are staying strangely silent on the issue. As the debate intensifies over Christmas, business and the City should support her in that stance. Of course many will be tempted to support another vote, and a lot of leading industry and financial leaders have already done so. But, like the cleverly branded People’s Vote campaigners, that is largely because they hope we will end up voting to Remain if we re-run the whole process. But they should at least be honest enough to point out that it would be a disaster for their companies, and for the economy. Why? There are three reasons.

First, another vote will simply prolong the uncertainty. The last one took months to prepare, and although it might be a bit quicker this time around it would still be a long process. During that time, no one would have the foggiest what might happen. We might leave with no deal, take the one on offer, or quietly forget about the whole thing and go back to arguing about inheritance taxes or road pricing or whatever it was that used to get us worked up about before Brexit started.

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