Thread by @AllianceBE

PRESS RELEASE from ABE in response to report that "Third of UK businesses are looking to relocate" - 09:45, 1 February 2019.

[FOLLOWS]

1/ The IoD claims to represent over 30,000 members yet has today released a survey representing a sample size of 1200, equivalent to canvassing 4% of their membership. They have provided no details of how these members were selected or a break down of the data sets.

2/ This finding has been extrapolated and manipulated to create the wild suggestion that 'a third of UK businesses' are looking to relocate. Only 9% of UK businesses do any trade with the EU at all. Therefore the figure of 33% is demonstrably false and misleading.

3/ We remain deeply disappointed by the media's deeply partisan and damaging coverage of Brexit. We are equally disappointed that our Government has sought to lean on companies like Airbus and institutions like the CBI for short term political ends, thus damaging public trust

4/ ABE would like to highlight the hundreds of businesses we represent who are positive and optimistic about Brexit whose opinions are never canvassed or requested. These are businesses with great entrepreneurial stories to tell but sadly they don't fit the desired narrative.

5/ ABE would further like to highlight alternative contrary statistics. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply for example found that 32% of UK businesses that use EU suppliers are looking for British replacements. This was not reported

6/ In 2018, an EEF survey stated that only 7% of the companies surveyed are planning to move production to the EU but, on the other hand, a much greater proportion (12%) are planning to move production back to the UK. Again, this went unreported.

7/ We can provide dozens of real world example of UK re-shoring since the Brexit vote, including household names like Clarks, Cadburys, McClaren, EE, Vodafone and BT.

We ask the outlets spreading these misleading figures to clarify their headlines as soon as possible.

[ENDS]