Jeremy Hunt has called warnings by the aerospace giant Airbus about the UK’s Brexit strategy “completely inappropriate,” saying the government should ignore the “siren voices”.
In the most bullish comments yet from a Cabinet minister since the warning from the company’s chief executive, Hunt said businesses sounding the alarm about job losses risked undermining the government at a key moment in the negotiations.
“It was completely inappropriate for businesses to be making these kinds of threats, for one simple reason,” the health secretary told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday. “We are in a critical moment in the Brexit discussions. We need to get behind Theresa May to deliver the best possible Brexit, a clean Brexit.”
Hunt said the best way for businesses to achieve the “clarity and certainty” they needed was to back the prime minister in her negotiations with Brussels. “The more we undermine May, the more likely we are to end up with a fudge which would be an absolute disaster for everyone,” he said.
His comments were echoed by the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, who said the UK’s negotiating position was being undermined by those urging the government to take “no deal” off the table.
“If we actually say we’ll accept any deal you give us rather than walk away, that weakens our negotiating position,” he told Sky’s Ridge yesterday. “And people who are making these comments need to understand that they may be actually putting the UK at a disadvantage by making these cases.”
Over the weekend, the car giant BMW followed Airbus in warning about the consequences of Brexit uncertainty, saying the company needed clarity on customs arrangements within months. Airbus, which employs 14,000 people, has said “a no-deal scenario directly threatens Airbus’ future in the UK”.
Further pressure came as the biggest business groups in the UK wrote a stinging letter to the prime minister, as well as to the European council president, Donald Tusk, and the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, yesterday, demanding greater input for business in the negotiations.
Business leaders have been further angered by reports that the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, allegedly contemptuously dismissed businesses’ Brexit concerns at a diplomatic reception this month.
Hunt said it was not surprising there was concern by corporations about the impact of Brexit but said it was not in the interests of the European commission to say negotiations were going well. “That’s part of their negotiating tactics,” he said.
“We have to ignore these siren voices ... get on and support May. If you look at the approach May has taken to Brexit so far, she has the instincts of a Brexiteer but the cautious pragmatism of a Remainer, which is where I think the British people are.
“She brings incredible resilience and we have to allow her to get on and negotiate this deal.”
Hunt also dismissed criticism of government claims that the £20bn spending boost to the NHS would come partly from a “Brexit dividend” – which the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said does not exist, given economic forecasts about the impact on growth of leaving the EU.
He said there would not be “very much” extra cash by the time Britain leaves the EU in 2019, given the financial settlement with the EU.
Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, speaks on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in London yesterday.
