BUSINESSES in Swindon and Wiltshire have issued damning vote of no confidence in the government to deliver a good deal for local businesses on Brexit.

A quarterly survey by Business West, a not-for profit company representing 21,000 small and medium sized businesses in the South West, found only 11 per cent of the 230 businesses polled in Swindon and Wiltshire were confident or very confident that Brexit negotiators would deliver a good deal.

Forty-nine per cent of business said they felt negative or very negative about the outcome of negotiations.

A clear majority also agreed that government is failing to communicate to businesses how they can prepare for Brexit, with 65 per cent saying they had a negative (25 per cent) or very negative (39 per cent) perception about the government’s communication.

Theresa May is meeting cabinet colleagues at Chequers, the prime minister’s country side retreat, today to thrash out the long-awaited details of Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU after Brexit.

Commenting on the findings, Ian Larrard, director of Swindon and Wiltshire Initiative at Business West, said: “Now, with the time running out ahead of the UK’s exit from the EU, business patience is reaching breaking point.

“Businesses have the right to speak out when it is abundantly clear that the practical questions affecting the competitiveness of their firms and the livelihoods of their employees is at stake.

“It’s time for politicians to stop the squabbling and the Westminster point-scoring – and start putting the national economic interest first.”

Pete Boucher, CEO of IT company Excalibur Communications, based in Swindon added: “what I’m frustrated by is that I think the business community have been consistent and pretty clear.

“With businesses like Honda, they try and get a part into their factory 75 minutes before assembly. That level of engineering excellence has taken them twenty years to get to, and a couple of bad meetings in Brussels or Cheques could jeopardise that.

“We really now need to get to a solution and we can then work with that. We need to be pragmatic now. My worry slightly is that politics becomes too ideological. These are real people’s jobs at stake and real company’s welfare.”