Business backs Fox’s ‘wake-up call’

LIAM FOX won the backing of business leaders last night after he called for a radical change in the “culture” of British companies to embrace global opportunities for trade after Brexit.

Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary, warned that firms needed to shake up their approach and pursue more business opportunities around the world after the UK voted to leave the EU.

In comments made during a private drinks reception, he said that Britain had become “too lazy and too fat”, and was resting on its previous successes. He quipped that some executives seemed more interested in playing golf on a Friday afternoon than exporting their companies’ goods and services.

He was criticised by Labour MPs and anti-Brexit campaigners but received the backing of other leading figures from commerce, who said he was right to issue a wake-up call to British firms.

Last night, Peter Hargreaves, founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, one of Britain’s largest financial services firms, and a prominent Brexit backer, gave his support to Dr Fox’s arguments. He said: “We have a lot of very good entrepreneurs in Britain, but there’s no doubt that there are also some in boardrooms who don’t deserve to be there – they’re idle, incompetent and ineffective.”

Mr Hargreaves added: “I think the sentiment is quite good. It’s a very exciting time, and just the right kick in the pants.

“The so-called experts and the doomsayers should shut up and stop trying to talk us into a recession.”

John Longworth, the former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, who backed the Brexit campaign, also said businesses had to do their bit to make a success of Brexit.

He said: “The Government of post-Brexit Britain has a unique opportunity to make the UK the best place in the world to do business – and business itself has to step up to the plate and make this happen.”

A Downing Street spokesman said Dr Fox was expressing his “private views” at a private meeting.

In his comments to the Thatcherite think tank Conservative Way Forward, Dr Fox argued that Britain had lost touch with its “free trading” past.

“We have become too lazy, and too fat on our successes in previous generations,” he said. “What is the point of us reshaping global trade, what is the point of us going out and looking for new markets for the United Kingdom, if we don’t have the exporters to fill those markets? We’ve got to change the culture in our country. People have got to stop thinking about exporting as an opportunity and start thinking about it as a duty.”

The co-founder of Innocent Drinks, Richard Reed, who campaigned to keep the UK in the EU, said he thought Dr Fox’s comments were “absolutely disgusting”.

Some critics felt that Liam Fox went too far last week when he told a Conservative Way Forward drinks party that British trade has become “too lazy” and “too fat” and that perhaps company bosses prefer to play golf, rather than push exports. Some of the backlash was unfair towards what were unscripted remarks: the golf analogy was presumably not literal. Moreover, the outcry distracted from points made that were rather good. Brexit does offer the country exciting opportunities. It is up to everyone to exploit them.

Dr Fox was right to say that the Foreign Office has been insufficiently interested in commerce. Pledges were made under the Coalition to use UK embassies to boost British businesses, but – as reports of civil service grumbling about Brexit indicate – dynamism has been lacking. This is not entirely Whitehall’s fault. When the UK joined the Common Market in 1973, it surrendered authority to negotiate trade deals to Brussels. With it went the culture and experience of using government machinery to promote trade. Happily, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have offered to lend Britain their own well-versed negotiators.

The Government must raise its game. If it does so, as Dr Fox suggested, it will be up to British business to grow beyond these shores. As Dr Fox has warned before, the UK suffers from a historic balance of payments deficit. In the future, Brexit may or may not mean continued membership of the single market. It most certainly must not mean protectionism. So we sincerely hope that companies, with the support of the Government, will project themselves into the new trading relationships Dr Fox hopes to create. Britain’s current reliance on imports needs remedy.