Brexit Bulletin: The Virus Takes Over

(Bloomberg) --

What isn’t happening? Important meetings. Lots of them.

With Britain’s final parting from the European Union less than eight months away, businesses had expected to be locked in deliberations with government officials by now.

But they’re not. Civil servants have been canceling key meetings to discuss critical issues such as how customs controls will work as they are redeployed to deal with the coronavirus crisis, Bloomberg’s Joe Mayes reports.

With the government grappling with a crisis unprecedented in peacetime, corporate lobbyists say the question is no longer whether Brexit will be delayed, but how Prime Minister Boris Johnson will sell a delay to the British public. Severing ties with the EU wouldn’t be the only major event to be put on hold by the virus: a pivotal United Nations climate change summit, due to be held in Glasgow in November, has been deferred until 2021. And that’s before we lament the loss of Wimbledon and the Edinburgh Fringe.

In public, the U.K. insists it will press on with Brexit — Johnson’s spokesman James Slack told reporters this morning there are no discussions about extending the transition period. And the joint U.K.-EU committee on implementing the Withdrawal Agreement did actually manage to hold its first meeting by teleconference on Monday.

If Johnson does press on, businesses have a blunt warning for him: the coronavirus has brought them to their knees. Firms have no desire to grapple simultaneously with the inevitable upheaval Brexit will bring. Leaving the EU is the one subject right now where the prime minister is coming under pressure to do as little as he can.

Beyond Brexit

• A record 6.65 million people made new jobless claims in the U.S. last week.
• China hit back after U.S. intelligence said Beijing had under-reported Covid-19 cases and deaths.
• A county in central China is back under lockdown.
• Spain’s daily death toll reached a grim new height, while glimmers of hope emerged in Italy.
• France is testing a malaria drug on Covid-19 patients. The results don’t look great.
• Restaurants across London are stepping up efforts to cook for NHS workers.

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