Yahoo Finance Theresa May tries to calm UK businesses' fears over immigration and trade
UK prime minister Theresa May said on Monday that Britain’s post-Brexit immigration policy will allow businesses to attract the best and brightest from around the world, in an attempt to quell misgivings from the industry.
The prime minister spoke to business leaders at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)’s annual conference in London on Monday. The CBI represents 190,000 UK companies who employ close to 7 million people in the UK. Around 1,500 of its members were in attendance at Monday’s annual conference.
The event comes just as her future as prime minister and the state of Brexit are both up in the air. May agreed a draft deal with the European Union on the terms of Brexit last week but it has been attacked by both the left and the right since then.
She doubled down on the deal on Monday, saying: “We have in view a deal that will work for the UK and let no one be in any doubt, I am determined to deliver it.”
The prime minister stressed the advantages the deal offers on immigration. She said: “Getting back full control of our borders is an issue of great importance to the British people.”
May said immigration control would be benefits for business too. She said: “It will no longer be the case that EU nationals, regardless of the skills or experience they have to offer, can jump the queue ahead of engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi.
“Instead of a system based on where a person is from, we will have one that is built around the talents and skills a person has to offer.”
‘It avoids the nightmare scenario’
Critics claim that May’s deal keeps the UK bound to EU laws without giving Britain any say over these rules. The prime minister has said it is the best deal possible as it is the only viable option to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland.
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigned in protest against the deal last Thursday and the rightwing of May’s Conservative Party has been calling for her to resign and threatening an internal leadership challenge.
The CBI threw its weight behind the deal on Monday, with senior representatives of the trade body saying it will avoid the disruption of a no-deal Brexit.
CBI President John Allan said the draft Brexit deal was “not perfect, we all know that” but “minimises the damage.”
“It avoids the nightmare scenario of a no deal departure which would be a wrecking ball for our economy. If we’re out without a deal, it will have severe consequences if every part of our country,” he added.
CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn said Brexit was “consuming” politics and businesses, and said politicians calling for a new deal were involved in “a high stakes game of risk where the outcome could be an accidental no deal. Surely, surely we can go better than this.”
She called the draft deal a “compromise” but “hard won progress.”
