17th Oct 2026 10:07
(Alliance News) - Repairing the economic damage of Brexit should be the top priority for the prime minister, the boss of the British Chamber of Commerce said.
Shevaun Haviland, director general of the BCC, welcomed Andy Burnham reopening the Brexit battle lines, saying the UK's current trading relationship with the EU was bad for business.
She told The Guardian: "We do think it's right because of what we know from the evidence of how businesses feel it's not working."
Haviland added that more than half of bosses surveyed by the BCC believed the deal negotiated by Boris Johnson's government was not helping them.
She told the newspaper: "We expected it to be very difficult at the beginning, when (companies) were getting used to the new rules, and then it would sort of get easier as it went along. But actually, that has not happened."
It comes as Burnham will use a key UK-EU summit next month to push for new post-Brexit deals with the bloc as he insisted "the status quo is not good enough" for Britain.
The two sides will seek to sign a new food and drink agreement, a youth mobility scheme and a pact on emissions trading which the prime minister hopes could provide a GBP10 billion boost to the economy.
At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last month, Burnham said he would set out the "options" for Britain's long-term relationship with Europe around the time of a UK-EU summit planned for the end of the year.
He has suggested that those options could include rejoining the bloc.
But Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused the prime minister of revealing his hand before the negotiations begin.
And Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Burnham has "opened the door to Reform in the most extraordinary way" after the prime minister reignited the Brexit debate.
Haviland said the BCC would also consult its members on a range of options for Britain's relationship, including rejoining the EU, according to The Guardian.
By Jordan Reynolds, Press Association
source: PA
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