Theresa May’s call for a ‘proper industrial strategy’ is to be welcomed, but the appointment of the May Government is against a backdrop of the decision to leave the EU, which will now dominate British politics for at least two years and possibly the best part of a decade. From now on every decision will be seen through the prism of what it means for Brexit.

The timetable is the first thing that will need to be addressed. The new PM has to decide when to trigger Article 50. Perhaps the most important factor in that decision is the extent to which other European leaders are prepared to help her by taking part in soft negotiations beforehand.

Then priorities will need to be set. From a business – and especially a manufacturing – point of view, the single market is hugely important in terms of access to the EU for the UK’s goods and services. More or less everyone favours the continuation of that. If the UK can retain membership of the single market the economic effects of Brexit will be much more restricted than they might otherwise be. The example that is available is the Norway model. However, the quid pro quo of the single market is freedom of movement, one of the fundamental freedoms of the EU and something that it is very unlikely that our erstwhile partners are going to feel able to compromise on. Given that a desire to curb immigration was behind the loss of the referendum it will be difficult, at least for a Conservative Prime Minister, to allow the continuation of freedom of movement.

Therefore, in a political sense the task for industry is to try to influence, in so far as we can, the terms by which the UK has access to but is unlikely to be part of the single market. This has been described as ‘Norway minus’.

Our long standing friends at Oxford Economics modelled a range of outcomes before the referendum. Their take was not as alarmist as some but still showed downsides to almost all possible outcomes, the key variables being the extent to which single market access was maintained and the rate of immigration – which tends to boost growth. 

The MTA is undertaking a major survey of its member to identify their priorities. As we complete this exercise we will feed this into Government and look to shape the priorities of the negotiations. We will have many similar priorities to other manufacturing bodies; as much of the single market as possible, strong trade terms with the rest of the world (if applicable, some single market-lite models might not require this), ability to hire qualified international staff. Here, our voices can be joined with others in the sector. However, just as important is identifying where we might have asks and dangers which are specific to the manufacturing technology industry.

For instance, will the Machinery Directive continue to apply in the UK? For almost any form of agreement in respect of the single market, and in recognition of the simple fact of the size of the EU market the answer will presumably be yes at least in some form. MTA membership of CECIMO and CELIMO (and through EAMA Orgalime) will presumably continue (cf Turkey and Switzerland) which may give us some leverage with the UK Government – we may have better access to decision making processes than them.

Certainly once the basic structure of our trade deal (Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Canada, Turkey…) takes shape, there is a role for the MTA in actively promoting the UK’s interests in the negotiations. We can expect much talk too from politicians about support for exports to the rest of the world in the light of Brexit and again the MTA can help with Pavilions planned in Turkey, India, China and Russia.