Brexit and business poll: 3 in 4 finance bosses think firms will be worse off

Just one quarter of chief financial officers are optimistic about Brexit’s long-term impact, new survey suggests.

Many of Britain’s financial bosses are more downbeat about our prospects after Brexit than at any other time since the referendum, a cheery new poll has revealed.

Every three months, financial consultancy firm Deloitte gleans the views of more than 100 chief financial officers from major UK-based firms about leaving the EU.

Its latest results, which you can see below, show three quarters believe the long-term environment for business will be worse once we leave, with just 9% believing things will improve.

“In a sign of a more challenging international backdrop CFO concerns around protectionism and a slowdown in the euro area increased in the second quarter,” Deloitte said of the figures.

“Business sentiment continues to be buffeted by the news on Brexit. The mid-year position of the UK corporate sector is defensive and watchful.

“How that changes over the rest of 2018 will be heavily dependent on the unfolding negotiations between the UK and the EU in the next six months.”

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Businesses have never backed Brexit: and opposition keeps growing

Now, there are a couple of important qualifiers to the above graph.

First of all, the survey was carried out between 3 June and 14 June, which is before recent talk of a (still unlikely) no-deal scenario hit the headlines, which is hardly likely to have improved their outlook.

That said, we should also point out that businesses have generally been opposed to Brexit all along.

As a case in point, the results of the first poll carried out by Deloitte (which you can also see above) showed just 13% were optimistic about the outcome while 68% were downbeat.

So even though pessimism is undoubtedly at a record high amongst respondents, the mood isn’t a million miles away from the consensus two years’ ago.

Public faith in the Government is falling far faster

The same can certainly not be said for Theresa May’s Government.

In a separate poll by Sky News, it was revealed that 78% of the public think the Government is doing a bad job negotiating Brexit.

This is an increase of 23% since the poll was last conducted in March.

What’s more, almost two-thirds of those who voted in Sky's poll now believe we’ll be landed with a ‘bad deal’ when negotiations are complete, up from 51%.

A new Sky Data poll has shown that 78% of the UK public think the government is doing a bad job negotiating a #Brexit deal pic.twitter.com/FH0EPAnjb4

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 30, 2018

No one knows anything for certain, so what do you think?

Given that Brexit is so divisive, and new developments seem to sway opinion on an almost weekly basis, we should always be wary of making any meaningful conclusions based on snapshots of public (or business) opinion.

As always, we want to point out that the none of the above is an attempt to convince people one way or the other, merely to highlight a stat – or in this case stats – that we find interesting.

So how do the above views tally with your own? Answer the following two poll questions and we’ll soon see how loveMONEY readers’ outlooks compare, and please do share your individual views in the comments section below to explain why you voted the way you did.