Business groups issue dire warnings on no deal Brexit. Why aren't they being heeded?

The CBI is quite right, no deal would be a disaster. But the gulf that has opened up between business leaders and workers is preventing what they are saying from being given the weight it deserves

Workers at one of Nissan's UK plants. Motor manufacturers have warned the industry could collapse as a result of a no deal Brexit (Reuters)

Business groups have been sounding alarm bells as the Conservative government’s Brexit express prepares to smash Britain into the buffers, and no wonder.

John Allan, president of the CBI, said crashing out of the EU without a deal on March 29 would do “irreparable harm to the UK economy” risking jobs and more.

He called on the government to find a way to avoid that situation and said now is the time for “very, very, clear leadership from the government and the time to bring people together”.

Well that would be nice John, but Theresa May has spent the last two years doing the opposite on both, putting the extremists in her party and her own anti immigration zealotry ahead of the country at every step.

UK Finance head Stephen Jones, meanwhile, warned of a 1930s style economic slump, with widespread job losses, homeowners unable to afford mortgages, and mass defaults on loans. That's quite a bit worse than the recession the banks caused ten years ago.

Want more? How about this from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. No deal risks “destroying Britain’s car industry”.

Scare mongering? Project fear. Nope. They’re all correct. From all the research I have done, from talking to people who know what they are talking about, through considering all the evidence, I have to agree that it will be a s***storm of truly epic proportions. Think Sharknado but with the beast from Jason Statham's 'The Meg' landing on businesses and everyone working in them and then eating them alive.

So why aren’t people listening? Why do they prefer to heed extremist MPs peddling fairy tales that are so incredible no reputable publisher would touch them even were their afternoon sherries to be spiked with industrial strength LSD?

One explanation might be the yawning gulf that has opened up between business leaders and the communities that they serve and operate in.

You can start with the aforementioned recession that followed the financial crisis, and the way the City's kingpins responded to it. They basically said it wasn't their fault, and carried on with the bonus bandwagon.

CEO pay has ballooned in whatever industry you care to consider. Top bosses are now paid like lottery winners regardless of how well they do.

The incident that encapsulated the problem for me occured last year when former BT boss Gavin Patterson unveiled plans to sack thousands of his staff to correct under performance he had presided over but still took a pay rise, and a partial bonus. That sort of thing sends out a message: it's us and them.

Bankers bonuses, the shabby treatment consumers often endure, the callous treatment of employees. They have all played a part in creating an unstable and angry country, prone to the blandishments of the opportunitsts and liars of the Brexit hard right.

The gulf is only reinforced when the business lobby furiously resists progressive measures; putting workers on boards for example. Remind me who it was that suggested that before running away from the idea in response to its howls of outrage. Oh that’s right, it was Theresa May, the same Theresa May who has refused to rule out no deal, at least at the time of writing. Just saying.

Suggest new protections for workers to curb the rising job insecurity the Resolution Foundation highlighted in a report yesterday and that I featured in this column, and you’ll hear more complaints. It’s more red tape. It’ll cost jobs. Please.

The business lobby has often been guilty of crying wolf. Now with the wolf actually at the door, snarling and spitting, it’s not being heard, even though the TUC has been issuing similar warnings about the effect of no deal.

If there is a lesson for it to learn it is that business is a part of society and that it would do well to pay closer attention to what’s going on in society, and to the impact it has on it.

Profoundly unequal societies like Britain's are ultimately unstable societies, and instability is bad for business. I believe I’ve written that before.

At least there should be plenty of time for reflection when we get through this. If we get through this.