In less than two months, on June 23, British voters will make a fateful decision: either to remain in the European Union or to leave.  The debate over that vote is already well beyond warming up, and arguably no interest group has a bigger stake in the outcome than British business.

Carolyn Fairbairn is the Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, the CBI, which represents some 190,000 firms and by extension the 7 million people who work for them - roughly one-third of Britain's private-sector work force.

Armed with the results of a recent survey of the CBI membership - 80 percent favor staying in the EU - and the findings from a study of likely Brexit scenarios by PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, Ms. Fairbairn and her colleague Rain Newton-Smith, went to the London Business School on Monday to talk about "Brexit - The Business View."  Today's featured quote is from the concluding portion of their lecture there.  Here is more from the same paragraph:

The lecture that Ms. Fairbairn and Ms. Newton-Smith put together is a rich and important contribution to the Brexit discussion, one that includes several spliced-in interviews with business leaders.   You will want to read it or watch it for yourself.  Here we can manage only two further background notes plus a few pertinent facts and projections.

Background Notes
The first of these is that, though no EU member has ever left before, the relevant EU law, the Lisbon Treaty, does provide for such an eventuality.  In the event that voters in the UK decide to exercise their country's right to leave, that will trigger a two-year process designed to allow for the negotiation of a new arrangement between the exiting party and the EU.

Second, Ms. Fairbairn was as candid about what she and the CBI were not doing as she was about the Brexit issues she addressed.   Speaking of the upcoming referendum, she said:

Trade, Investment, Regulation and Uncertainty were all prominent themes in the CBI's lecture.  We'll touch briefly on each of them.

Trade. The EU - the other 27 countries - is the UK's largest export market, taking some 45 percent of British exports.  Next in line is the United States which buys some 16 percent of UK exports.   Even those figures, however, understate the importance of the EU to UK trade.  First there is the matter of those other EU deals that benefit the UK.   On top of that is the fact that some trade - namely free trade - is more valuable than trade burdened by tariffs. Director-General Fairbairn covered the first point, the EU's other deals, saying:

The fact that free-trade, such as the UK has with its EU partners, has a greater value to companies than non-free trade was brought home at the lecture with a clip from Dave Hall, the CEO of Renolit Cramlington, which makes plastic coatings.  He pointed out that:

Investment.  The UK is home to more foreign direct investment than any other EU country.  The lion's share of it comes from the EU, and single market access - the UK's membership in the EU - is important to all of those investors.

Regulations.  Food and Drink make up the UK's largest manufacturing sector.   It is a sector that relies heavily on exports to the rest of the EU, and it is a sector that sees itself as benefiting from the EU-wide uniformity of regulations.  More broadly, the CBI's view is that, notwithstanding pockets of annoyance with Brussels, British business is not likely to get much regulatory relief from leaving the EU.

Uncertainty.  But the uncertainly is already taking a toll, and that toll will only increase if the referendum result is exit.

The question may be simple: in or out, stay or leave.  The issues, however, are complex, and we shall be looking at other perspectives between now and the vote - and most likely afterwards as well.  So, we shall keep this short.

Our first point is simply to repeat one of our favorite quotes: "There are no facts about the future."   And strictly speaking there are not.  Even if you take that little saying as gospel, however, it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility of trying to understand the consequences of particular decisions, especially big ones like the Brexit vote.  The CBI was right to work with PwC on their report, right to try to get a feel for the most probable Brexit scenarios, and, of course, right to poll their members.  That said, it is worth bearing in mind that none of the scenarios is likely to play out precisely as projected.

Second, virtually all of the arguments that have been (or will be) put forward in this debate are colored by the desired outcome of those advancing them.

Third and finally, there is the issue of how different parties will react to the vote.   Our sincere hope is that, whatever the outcome, all parties - from London to Brussels to Washington to Beijing - will do their utmost to ensure the smoothest possible transition - whether that be to the UK's newly reconfirmed membership in the European Union or to a wholly new relationship between the islands and the continent.

The CBI Lecture is a link to the March 21 lecture at the London Business School by the CBI's Director-General and the CBI Director of Economics on the topic "Brexit - The Business View."  Both video and text versions of the lecture are available here.  
Article 50 is the Wikipedia entry on the established process of managing a country's exit from the European Union.

About the CBI is the welcome page of the website of the Confederation of British Industry.

No Facts is an amusing reflection on the thought that there are no facts about the future, albeit from a different field.