Corporate travel leaders have been told to expect a deal on Brexit but not by the route Prime Minister May is now pursuing.
The industry can also expect Britain’s EU-leaving date to be postponed beyond March 29.
That is the view of BBC political commentator Steve Richards who told a Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) industry leaders’ lunch in London: “[Most] MPs are terrified of no deal.”
However, he ruled out a second referendum or an abandonment of Brexit and warned: “What May comes back with from the EU will not be enough.”
Richards insisted: “This is a not a Commons [Parliament] that will deliver a second referendum or Remain. It will take the UK out of the EU.”
He described Theresa May as “the most-fragile prime minister in decades” saying: “She leads a divided cabinet and a fractured party in a hung Parliament.”
Yet she survived “colossal defeat and a vote of no confidence”, said Richards, who told the GTMC: “She remains pivotal. She can initiate and act and no one else can.”
“She does not read the newspapers. She just moves on, and she has decided to move on for now by forming an informal alliance with the [loyalist] DUP [of Northern Ireland] and Tory [Brexit] hardliners. She has no idea whether it will work.”
He explained: “She has opted for a very precise route – to bring together the DUP and the European Reform Group [of Brexiteer Tory MPs] on the promise that she can get a revised deal.
Richards said: “The ERG is unyielding.” But he noted: “All the indications from Europe are that they also will be unyielding.”
EU leaders “don’t want no deal”, he said, but warned: “My guess is what May comes back with will not be enough, in which case she might depend on Labour MPs.”
Richard said: “That is the more-likely dynamic – not that [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn will back it [May’s deal], but he will be relaxed if some Labour MPs do.”
He suggested: “May will get something through in the end because more MPs are terrified by no deal [than not].”
However, Richards told corporate travel leaders: “It will need more time – until the end of July or something.”
He also assured the sector: “Your voice will matter in the post-Brexit period.”
Richards said: “The focus of whoever is the post-Brexit prime minister will be ‘Britain is open for business’ and ‘Britain is a global power’ and your sector embodies that.
“Heathrow expansion will be essential. HS2 [the planned high-speed rail development] will be a symbol.
“Your voice will be louder in what will be a period of instability that will last for some time – because all the trading negotiations are still to come.”
