EU REFERENDUM: To paraphrase – and sanitise – the head of an inward investment agency I had dinner with last night: “If anyone had sought to devise a mechanism for screwing up investment, dividing the country and make us think even less of our politicians, they couldn’t have done better than this referendum.” He was angry, I hardly need say. And he was absolutely right.
This referendum debate has, by a distance, been the most hateful, fear-inducing, wilfully ignorant political event of recent memory. And it was avoidable, we shouldn’t forget.
But here we are, less than 48 hours from potentially quitting that imperfect political and economic construct, the European Union.
Over the past several weeks it has dominated the conversations I have been involved in. Many of those I have spoken to have differentiated between their hearts (out) and their heads (in).
A few weeks ago I chaired a debate for Allsop, where there was passion, detail and disagreement. (And, what a relief, given its absence elsewhere, civility.)
In the Leave camp were Conservative MP James Cleverly, economist Patrick Minford and Richard Tice, head of Quidnet Capital and co-founder of leave.eu, yes, a campaigning organisation in favour of Brexit. For Remain were Labour MP Emma Reynolds, former JP Morgan Cazenove head of real estate investment banking Robert Fowlds and Charles Gallagher, chairman of UK housebuilder Abbey.
We conducted a vote at the beginning of the evening and at the end. While Leave won the debate and closed the gap, the Remain camp held enough ground to triumph.
Yes, there have been some powerful Brexit arguments along the way – most private, some public. The most effective was perhaps Nick Leslau’s in Estates Gazette: “‘Better the devil you know’ is generally the rhetoric of ignorance and lack of ambition.”
It made me – and many colleagues – pause for thought. Yet I cannot agree.
I believe a vote to Leave will have negative consequences for this industry and beyond. I believe it will negatively impact inward investment for at least a period of time. I believe it will diminish our influence globally. And, crucially, I believe there would be very little upside beyond, perhaps, a feeling that we have done the Right Thing.
It is important to remember what this debate is not about, as much as what it is.
As Fowlds told the Allsop debate: “This isn’t a referendum on joining the euro.” As Argent’s David Partridge told the London Real Estate Forum last week: “This isn’t the Battle of Britain.” And as Hermes’ Chris Taylor told the International Festival of Business today: “This isn’t the time to play our trump card.”
I will vote Remain with more enthusiasm than I perhaps anticipated. Perhaps I have been influenced by last week’s tragedy. I know I believe Remain is in our economic interests. And I do believe we stand a better chance of triggering necessary political change on the inside of the tent than the outside.
I will only make one plea: please do vote tomorrow. A high turnout will help us move on quicker, whatever the result. And we do need to move on, for any number of reasons.
