Jim Armitage: Businesses need to be more honest over Brexit’s dangers

HSBC is braver than we thought. Its decision to stick its head above the parapet on Brexit earlier will not go down well in No 10, from where an edict has reportedly declared that any company caught making negative remarks about Brexit will be frozen out of access to Downing Street.

Yet, despite that chilling order, HSBC has gone on the record to declare major corporate clients are already asking for trade to go through its Paris operations rather than London.

Not only that, HSBC’s commercial banking head says, but companies are looking to flip their headquarters from London to Europe as the prospect of a hard Brexit becomes increasingly likely.

Business people will not be surprised by anything Noel Quinn says. Pretty much every senior banker privately says the same.

But amid a climate of fear in which anyone casting doubt on the wisdom of breaking away from our biggest single trading partner risks being vilified by the Brexiteer media and MPs, the widespread fears among employers about our EU exit are muffled and wholly underreported.

That reticence to speak up fuels the Brexiteers’ claims that worries voiced by businesses during the Referendum campaign last year were bogus posturing. Their silence is taken as an admission they were wrong.

In truth, they were right all along. At best, a significant minority of lucrative business will leave the City, for European capitals.

At worst, the Brexit talks will see EU negotiators weaken London’s coveted strength in financial services to such an extent that they can’t handle the business anymore and it flees to New York or Asia.

It’s important that the public — both here and in Europe — are aware of these dangers so they can put pressure on their politicians accordingly.

Having the greatest experts — those who have spent their entire career actually running the world’s biggest financial institutions in the City — cowed into silence surely helps nobody.

Words, not action

Everyone understands that Royal Mail cannot afford its final salary pension promises.

That includes the unions which, despite what you might think, these days aren’t entirely unreasonable in their negotiations with company managements.

Increasingly, rather than just saying “no” to closure, they are open to accepting cheaper alternatives — as long as companies still pay a fair share.

Early signs are suggesting that Royal Mail is heading for a stand-off which will end in strike action. It should be more conciliatory.

Jaw jaw, not war war, is what is needed.