Duke says business can benefiT fROM sPLiT WiTH eu
Prince Andrew urged firms to take an optimistic approach to Brexit BRITISH business should be looking to benefit from fresh trade opportunities outside the European Union after Brexit, the Duke of York said yesterday. He urged firms to take an optimistic “glass half-full” approach after last year’s referendum result. Prince Andrew is the first Royal to make detailed comments on the topic in public since Britain voted to leave the EU. The Queen’s second son was a “roving business ambassador” for the UK until 2011 and was attending a Commonwealth science conference in Singapore, where he was also promoting his initiative to boost entrepreneurs. He told the BBC that the UK “should be engaging with as many different markets as we possibly can and looking at the best of things rather than necessarily the worst of things”.
He said: “You can either look at it as a glass half-empty, which is: ‘Oh my God, why have we done this?’ Or you could look at it as a glass half-full, which is: ‘OK, that’s where we are. There are opportunities that we’ve got to make.’ The world is your oyster.”
He conceded: “There is going to be uncertainty and difficulty and upheaval over the next few years whilst this all plays out and I have no idea how it will play out.”
But he stressed there were opportunities awaiting firms in the 51 other Commonwealth nations, as well as China and the US.
The UK had been focused up to now on the “internal market” of the 27 other EU states. “There’s an external market that’s a lot bigger and many businesses hadn’t looked over that garden fence to some extent,” the Duke said. “And in my experience recently, businesses that look over the garden fence have gone: ‘Hmm, the grass is not quite as dark and unforgiving as you might expect and actually, there might be some fresh grass out there’.”
Prince Andrew drew controversy last year after suggesting that a combination of Brexit and Donald Trump could “tear things apart”.