Brexit Vote: Parliament to Decide on E.U. Withdrawal Plan – The New York Times

For businesses, a chance to gain clarity

The vote will provide little of the detail that businesses need to plan their operations, but it could at least narrow the options.

“The longer this Brexit political drama continues, the less and less attractive the U.K. is going to be” to investors, Iain Anderson, the executive chairman of the consulting firm Cicero Group, said last week.

Although many businesses are already preparing for the worst-case scenario — crashing out of the European Union without a deal in place — many have also been vocal in warning against it.

“Make no mistake, no-deal cannot be ‘managed,’ ” Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, said last week.

The government has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to ease public anxiety over how a no-deal scenario would be managed. Last week it created an artificial traffic jam to test how it would manage disruption at the border, an exercise that was widely derided.

Manufacturers remain concerned that a no-deal situation would wreak havoc on just-in-time manufacturing, which relies on goods crossing the British border, sometimes multiple times, and arriving within minutes of assembly. — Amie Tsang