“Brexit: Business leaders call for swift transition deal”
I notice among the lobby groups representing the Business Leaders is our old friends, the CBI. There is an old adage among many genuine business folk which goes “Find out the CBI’s views on the matter and do the opposite”. What a laugh, you may say, until you consider these tales from the CBI’s history:
One of the CBI’s earliest “big hits” (it was the FBI then – the Federation of British Industries) was its campaign for the UK to rejoin the “gold standard”. We did. It was an unmitigated disaster. It led to catastrophic results for the British economy after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 leading to massive unemployment and widespread distress, Undeterred, even as late as August 1931 the CBI was adamantly opposed to Britain ditching the Gold Standard. When we eventually did the country’s economy greatly benefitted leading to renewed growth.
The CBI was an ardent supporter of the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. On the day that Hitler’s tanks rolled into Prague in March 1939, the CBI took the decision to carry on with a trade mission to Dusseldorf, on the grounds that ‘political differences have nothing to do with industrialists.’ It continued its policy of appeasement with the USSR during the Cold War.
They vehemently opposed Margaret Thatcher’s Trade Union reforms which many people see as one of the greatest contributions to restoring the UK’s competitiveness.
In the 1987 it called for the UK’s full membership of the ERM. Our membership was a disaster, leaving many homeowners in negative equity and businesses suffering interest rates of up to 15%. Only when we left was decent growth and stability restored. Inevitably in 1999 it said that joining the Euro would, in its own words, ‘deliver significant benefits to the UK economy’. We all know what happened next and we can all guess fairly accurately what would have happened if the UK adopted the Euro.
It strongly advocates the transfer of powers from Westminster to Brussels (well it did before June of last year) and now it pontificates on the best way for the UK to deal with Brexit. If it’s all the same to you I hope the government adopts the old adage.