Ex-DUP economy minister Simon Hamilton: no-deal Brexit could do untold damage
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW,
A NO-DEAL Brexit has the potential to cause “untold damage” to the local economy, a former DUP finance minister has said.
Simon Hamilton, who headed up three Stormont departments in his time as an MLA, said the withdrawal agreement drawn up by ex-Prime Minister Theresa May was preferable to crashing out of the EU without a deal.
That stands in stark contrast to the position of Mr Hamilton’s former party, which was opposed to the deal and the controversial backstop contained within it.
Speaking as he settled into his new role as chief executive of Belfast Chamber, Mr Hamilton, who was once tipped as a future leader of the DUP, said the business community needed to know how Brexit would affect their ability to operate.
“There’s a lot of different analysis about a no-deal Brexit and about what the impact would be, but I think that if an exit is going to happen, it needs to be as orderly as possible,” said Mr Hamilton, who is also a former Stormont Economy Minister.
“(It needs to) give people the opportunity to prepare and to know what is going to be in place. In that sense, a no-deal ought to be avoided at all costs.
“There is such uncertainty about what the impact will be.
“There are huge costs for business to deal with and it isn’t just the financial cost. What does it mean for hiring staff, retaining staff, accessing finance and getting future investment?”
Mr Hamilton, who has consistently refused to reveal how he voted in the referendum, despite his then party campaigning in favour of leaving, continued: “Businesses are also really concerned about consumer confidence. They’re really, really worried that people may not be spending.
“The business community needs time to prepare, but nodeal will be hugely damaging to lots of aspects of our economy.
“It’s still quite fragile and the last thing we need to inject is something which could potentially do untold damage because, at this stage, we don’t know the extent of that damage.
“Seventy-eight percent of our members were supportive of the withdrawal agreement when Theresa May brought it forward.
“I’m not saying that it was perfect or ideal, but at that time it gave some certainty about what was happening and also time to prepare for it.
“The situation around Brexit changes from day to day and hour to hour.
“I’ve asked members their views and taken those views on board. Without getting into the specifics of the responses to the survey, there is clear concern about a no-deal and its impact.
“There is uncertainty generally because we don’t know how nodeal is going to play out.
“Even though it looks like there isn’t going to be a no-deal in the immediate future, Boris Johnson can bring back a nodeal to Parliament and ask it to vote on it.
“There are all sorts of concerns that down the line, maybe in three months, there is another risk of another cliff-edge.”
Responding to the possibility of a Northern Ireland-only backstop, which his former DUP colleagues have described as unacceptable, Mr Hamilton said: “It’s very hard to comment because we don’t know what that may look like.”
However, he stressed that the priority for the business community in Northern Ireland at the moment was clarity around the impact of Brexit.
“I suppose what they are saying to people in my former profession is that they want solutions, they want this sorted out and they want some certainty so they can plan for the future,” he said.
Mr Hamilton, who was Economy Minister for just under a year before the collapse of the Assembly in 2017, also said businesses were facing the combined challenge of uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the ongoing political vacuum at Stormont.
He said while Belfast had flourished in the past decade, a range of policies and plans that would help the city to improve further had stalled without a devolved government.
“Brexit has been going on for a couple of years. Coupled with the absence of an Assembly and Executive, it becomes doubly problematic because if the government was functioning, at least we would have some decisions being taken and some progress being made,” he explained.
Having taken up his post last Monday, the fallout from Brexit and the absence of a government at Stormont will remain high on the agenda, but Mr Hamilton is also concerned with raising the profile of his organisation.
He is keen to spread awareness that Belfast Chamber represents all areas of business in the city and he hopes to work with organisations such as Belfast City Council to help implement improvements that will benefit the whole economy.
He said infrastructure developments and creating more green spaces would help to drive up footfall in the city.
“The fire at Primark, just to see it happening, was horrendous,” Mr Hamilton added.
“One of my first jobs was selling shoes in the city centre, so I walked past the building thousands of times. You don’t really think about it, but to see that beautiful building up in flames, it was awful.