Parliamentary Snapshot: Uncovering MPs’ views on a hard Brexit

The Parliamentary Snapshot report produced by The Entrepreneurs Network and supported by Bircham Dyson Bell has just been released. The following article, first published by The Times’ Brief, highlights some of the report’s key findings.

Hard Brexit will be good for entrepreneurs, say two-thirds of Tory MPs

Two-thirds of Tory MPs believe a hard Brexit would boost British entrepreneurs, a survey for the law firm Bircham Dyson Bell has found.

The optimistic view was held by 66 per cent of Conservative MPs, although opinions were less positive on the opposition benches, with 8 per cent of Labour MPs telling the researchers that Brexit would benefit domestic business innovation.

The YouGov survey into MPs’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship, published yesterday for the law firm and the Entrepreneurs Network, found that more than 70 per cent of Labour MPs believed entrepreneurs would be better off if the UK remained in the bloc.

In the fourth year of the survey, the researchers found that the greatest divergence between the two main parties was over whether lowering personal taxes would be good for entrepreneurs. More than 90 per cent of Tory MPs said doing so would be positive, while only 26 per cent of their Labour counterparts agreed.

‘There can be no hiding that while views about Brexit vary, it is casting a disruptive shadow, potentially for some time to come,’ Hollie Gallagher, a partner at Bircham Dyson Bell, said.