General Election prediction

With just a day to go until the General Election, Andrew Stellakis shared his thoughts and predictions with Bdaily Northwest.

You can read it here…

It’s no secret that the country’s future rests on the Brexit deal we secure over the next couple of years. But as certainty won’t be possible until the negotiations are underway, this election is simply distracting from that reality.

Fundamentally, the mandate from the public will determine who our Prime Minister is for the next four years, but it won’t have any real impact on that person’s authority over the trade deal, which is the critical issue for the UK.

From a business perspective, the front-runners present a polarising choice when it comes to both the election and Brexit. Ultimately, it’s become a personality contest – Corbyn is doing a good job of appealing to the common man, but is likely to be too conciliatory to secure us a good deal, while May is battling to prove her authority, but her relentless pursuit of a ‘hard Brexit’ is dangerous and could see us walking away empty-handed.

What’s worrying is that real issues are being overshadowed by this political performance – it’s now less than a year until the General Data Protection Regulations are enforced, for example, but where’s the media coverage? To continue trading with Europe, businesses need to prepare now for these changes – but no one’s talking about it.

So, whoever wins on Thursday, it should be their priority to define and publicise the negotiables and non-negotiables of the trade deal. And then we’ll need to brace ourselves for even more uncertainty as they lead us through Brexit’s unchartered waters.