The terrors of Brexit

Agreed, opinion on the merits, methods and morality of Brexit differ around here as they do elsewhere across the nation. Yet we are still connoisseurs of the desperation inherent in some of the stories. For example, that companies may leave, or even plan their way around things:

Thousands of British companies have already triggered emergency plans to cope with a no-deal Brexit, with many gearing up to move operations abroad if the UK crashes out of the EU, according to the British Chambers of Commerce.

Before a crucial week in parliament, in which MPs will try to wrest control from Theresa May’s government in order to delay Brexit and avoid a no-deal outcome, the BCC said it believed companies that had already gone ahead with their plans represented the “tip of the iceberg” and that many of its 75,000 members were already spending vital funds to prepare for a disorderly exit.

It said that in recent days alone, it had been told that 35 firms had activated plans to move operations out of the UK, or were stockpiling goods to combat the worst effects of Brexit.

Well, yes, there’s likely to be a change in the basic operating environment in the near future for these companies and so we would rather hope that a certain amount of planning and preparation goes on. You know, management does get paid to do some managing, it’s not all just fat cats sleeping on soft piles of lucre.

Again, the merits of that change are not the point here, rather the desperation with which the point is being put forward.

There are 5.7 million businesses in the UK. The BCC represents 75,000 of them. 35 is not a large portion nor proportion of either number. It’s not even certain that this is a larger such than activate such plans on any normal day in fact.

To repeat for a third time, the decision itself is something we can all disagree upon. But there’s more than a whiff of desperation to at least some of the arguments being put forward.