Brexit and the Business Trust Gap

The vast majority of the business community campaigned for the UK to stay in the EU. So why did the British public not follow their advice?

According to Bill Boulding, Dean of Fuqua School of Business, it was down to a fundamental lack of trust. Data from the US shows that trust in politicians is low but trust in big business is lower still. A similar situation in the UK allowed politicians from the ‘leave’ side to benefit from the perception that: if the heads of banks and multinationals support ‘remain’ it must be wrong for the rest of us.

Leave campaigners were able to move the argument away from the economic consequences of Brexit, which for better or worse will have a profound impact, and to play on fear and anger around immigration and the social fault-lines brought on by globalization.

This troubling trend, paralleled in the US, during the current Presidential campaign, means that there is no pressure for accountability for politicians to offer a better alternative, but rather an easy way out by deflecting responsibility away from policy to business and the focus away from the economy.