Johnson Offers Business an Olive Branch as U.K. Election Revs Up
Bloomberg•
Johnson Offers Business an Olive Branch as U.K. Election Revs Up
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Boris Johnson will try to win business leaders to his side Monday, offering them tax cuts as an olive branch for the disruption caused by Brexit. It comes as the campaign for the U.K. election heats up, with the first televised debate and the release of policy offers from the parties.
Britain goes to the polls on Dec. 12 in an election that could determine how -- or whether -- Britain leaves the European Union. A slew of opinion polls in the Sunday newspapers all put Johnson’s Conservatives well ahead of the opposition Labour Party. But the week ahead features several potential landmines for the prime minister: He’ll take on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn head-to-head on Tuesday, and the two men will appear separately taking questions from a TV audience on Friday.
The week will start with the prime minister addressing the the annual conference of the U.K.’s main business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry. It could be a tense moment. Four years ago campaigners from the pro-Brexit campaign that Johnson would go on to head interrupted a speech there by his predecessor David Cameron to denounce the body as the “Voice of Brussels.”
“Let’s not beat around the bush, big business didn’t want Brexit,” Johnson will say, according to speech extracts released in advance. “You made that clear in 2016, and this body said it louder than any other. But what is also clear is that what you want now -- and have wanted for some time -- is certainty.”
Before he became prime minister, Johnson reportedly dismissed the concerns of industry with a four-letter epiphet. Now his pitch is certainty. Having been the lead campaigner to get Britain out of the European Union, and one of the lead rebels who stopped a Brexit deal getting through Parliament, Johnson is pitching himself as the man best-placed to lead the country on.
