Could British business leaders be the biggest block to UKIP’s campaign for parliament? The new Ipsos MORI Captains of Industry survey shows that although 45% of Captains want to return to being part of an economic community, without political links, just 1% would be happy to leave it all together.
Captains like the ease of access to markets and people that EU membership gives them, but not the accompanying regulations. The leading business advantages they see are the ease of cross-border trading (46%), ease of access to EU customers (41%) and being part of the single market (40%). Recruitment is made easier too for one in three Captains (34%) with no need for visas for EU workers.
The disadvantages of EU membership cited by Captains include: the volume of regulations (52%) and the changes to regulations (55%), which top the table of disadvantages. However, the EU’s economic outlook also makes it into the top three with just under half (46%) of Captain’s citing this as a concern.
It isn’t just EU regulation that concerns industry leaders, 79% consider the level of regulation harmful to the UK economy. However, the strength of agreement on this point has declined over the last five years from 44% strongly agreeing in 2010, to 28% at the end of 2014. This may suggest that businesses are either becoming accustomed to increasing regulation, or that the burden has improved a little in recent years.
The most requested improvement in regards to the regulatory burden is for employment legislation to be simplified (24%). Other suggestions include more harmonisation between UK and EU regulations (11%), reducing general levels of regulation (8%) and reducing tax regulation (7%).
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