Choppy waters

The precariously paused war on Iran by the US and Israel is jeopardising UK economic recovery, and is causing new disruption. It has already demonstrated the risks of dependence on fossil fuels and underlined the dangers of military reliance on the US. Whilst we wait to see what happens, it is worth stepping back to look at the UK and Europe as a whole from a business point of view. The glaring truth is that the whole continent urgently needs money for defence, public services, and investment in infrastructure including energy transition. Countries also need to work together more closely to get the benefits of continental scale in industry and defence. The most obvious, and possibly only, decisive step the UK could take to change its economic predicament would be

to fully rejoin the EU and become again a proactive participant in its evolution. This would include rejoining the Single Market, originally a UK-led project that was never fully implemented, but now needs to be completed to help restore European competitiveness.

An unexpected outcome of the hostilities in Ukraine has been the rapid evolution of military technology, particularly in relation to drones. Ukraine is leading the world in such technologies and there is also a wider recovery of the European defence sector including companies such as BAE, Rolls Royce Rheinmetall, Dassault, Arianespace, Airbus, Saab and many others. With the expertise of such companies, and the rapid technology transition in defence, Europe may be able to become stronger and more independent while cutting US imports and expanding exports to countries in the Middle East who urgently need to strengthen their defences.

Later this month we have our Spring Reception hosted at the House of Commons by Dame Chi Onwurah, Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee. This is followed by a roundtable on surface transport planning led by Ruth Cadbury MP, Chair of the Transport Select Committee. We are hoping to be able to confirm speakers and dates for our summer programme after the early May local council elections which are keeping many MPs busy at present.