Meanwhile In The Real World Away From Brexit

I spent the day yesterday at a DIT organised meeting about exporting.  It was supported by the EU's regional fund so there was EU branding around on some of the signage.  It was mainly attended by smaller businesses with a lot of attendees being the founders of companies or who work directly with the owners - so quite an entrepreneurial crowd. 


So were these guys in a panic over the impending arrival of Brexit?   Was everyone sharing stories about how bad things are going to be?   Or were they eagerly looking forward to the new dawn as Britain threw off its shackles?  The answer is nobody was talking about it.  It was one of those events where the atmosphere was good and everyone was talking to each other, swapping stories and looking at what we were all doing and find opportunities to work together and do business.   The subject of Brexit just never came up. 

It was quite a good corrective to the media.  Partisans are always convinced that the news coverage is deliberately slanted against their point of view.  But even if every journalist was even handed and every media owner was heedless of their own views, there is still a bias towards what is topical.  All the events about Brexit, whatever you think about them, are newsworthy.  So you'd be forgiven for thinking it was really important. And indeed it is - but not to the exclusion of everything else.  When it comes to trade the key thing is having something to trade.  The activities of governments can help a bit.    The meeting yesterday was a good example of that with both the DIT and the EU giving a helping hand.  And government action can harm trade at the margins too.  But on the whole it is a lot more to do with ideas and innovation.

Brexit is going to create some problems.  But businesses are good at solving that kind of problem.  It will probably create some opportunities too.   So I suspect that if the Conservatives - who aren't very good at solving any kind of problem - fail to even get a deal for leaving the EU in good order it won't be too much of a disaster.   This is more of a problem for the proponents of Brexit than its detractors.  If it's a damp squib, what in heaven's name was the point of all the time and money spent on the bloody thing?