British jobs will be relocated abroad and production shifted to the continent unless progress is made on the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU at next week’s summit in Brussels, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has warned.

CBI president speaks on Brexit

Paul Drechsler, CBI president, said in a speech on Wednesday evening that reaching an agreement on a transition period was an “immediate” priority for business.“Today, Brexit uncertainty looms over almost every aspect of doing business in the UK. Every day, companies are having to plan for the worst while hoping for the best,” Mr Drechsler said in a speech to the City of London Corporation.“They are making choices that will determine new jobs, new plants and new investments in the years ahead. Businesses will press snooze for as long as they can – but the alarm will go off.“No company wants to move jobs or shift production – but business will if it has to. No-one wants to leave their homes or jobs – but EU citizens will if they feel they are no longer wanted.“And we know that financial services firms start making their ‘no turning back’ decisions in the first quarter of 2018. There’s no time to waste. In the immediate term, business needs to know the details of any transition deal – Rome is burning on that issue.“And we need progress at the EU council next week or 60 per cent of firms with contingency plans will have put these into effect by Easter. That means jobs leaving the UK – in most cases irreversibly.“These two things can be the dam that stems the flow of lost opportunities. We can then finally start talks on a deal that will start from 40 years of economic integration.“To those politicians suggesting we walk away from the negotiating table, I have a simple message: Careless talk will cost jobs. It’s intolerable at a time when we all need to be working in the national interest. We can’t walk away when the going gets tough.“We can’t enter into negotiations that affect the future of millions of people and then leave at the first sign of trouble. It would be an act of gross irresponsibility to walk away.“To protect jobs, businesses and the prosperity of the country, we need to do what it takes to make progress and get on with the deal.”

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Relocation to European hubs post-Brexit could be cancelled

Meanwhile, in an interview with the BBC, Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, said banks with contingency plans to relocate staff to new European hubs on the continent after Brexit, could yet abandon those plans if a deal could be reached to retain the ‘passporting rights’ that enable UK-based banks to operate freely throughout Europe.Mr Winters said banks – including his own, which is planning to move jobs to Frankfurt – were “preparing for the worst” over Brexit, but could yet cancel those plans and “flush down the toilet” the money already spent on proposed relocations, if a deal for the financial sector can be reached.“London will take hits in the context of Brexit,” he said. “Some jobs will move from London to the continent. I think big parts of the euro-denominated corporate banking business will be forced into Europe.“It’s possible that through the Brexit negotiations that there is some sort of extended passporting rule, but none of us are expecting that quite frankly, or preparing for that. We have to prepare for the worst. Our regulators in the UK require us to prepare for the worst.“The best would be we carry on as we are and passporting is allowed to continue to exist and we can run our business as we do today, in which case we will have spent a bunch of money and flushed it down the toilet.”

Skilled labour availability in London

Mr Winters said that, although the government continued to insist that it wanted to attract the brightest and best talent from around the globe, ministers’ “body language” was already putting off overseas workers.“We have already had some setbacks for the talent pool in London through the restriction on student visas. That’s already a problem,” he said.“Some of the best talent that we can have in the UK marketplace is coming from students that have chosen to study here and then stayed for some extended period afterwards.“We’ve noticed that impact already, more through a sense from non-UKs or foreigners that this might not be such a hospitable place any longer.“It’s more psychological than contractual, as it were. But I think it’s something we must really be very careful about.”Read more about current issues facing global mobility professionals in the Winter issue of our magazine, coming soon. For related news and features, visit our Brexit section. Look out for the launch of 2018's Relocate Awards, entry open in January.Relocate’s new Global Mobility Toolkit provides free information, practical advice and support for HR, global mobility managers and global teams operating overseas.Access hundreds of global services and suppliers in our Online Directory

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