The leader of Britain’s biggest business lobby group is to call for a “jobs first” Brexit transition deal to be negotiated within 70 days.

In a speech on Monday, Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI director general, will also call for Theresa May’s government to show greater urgency in Brexit talks to give clarity to companies that will otherwise need to trigger alternative plans, including moving jobs and investment offshore.

She will say that a no-deal scenario would be an act of “great economic self-harm”, by imposing billions of pounds of costs on UK goods sold to the EU and vice versa, and existing trade deals between the EU and Canada and the EU Norway would not be the best solution for Britain.

“Economics and prosperity must be put ahead of politics and red lines,” she will say, according to excerpts of the speech released on Sunday.

Fairbairn, speaking on ITV’s Peston On Sunday, warned the prime minister that the UK must stay inside a comprehensive customs union with the European Union to maintain strong trade links with its biggest markets after Brexit. May ruled out remaining a member of the European single market and customs union a year ago, saying Britain wanted the freedom to negotiate its own trade deals.

Liam Fox, the trade minister, has argued that businesses should turn their attention from the EU to the US and faster growing markets in the far east, South America and Africa.

Fairbairn said Britain’s businesses valued the certainty of existing free trade in Europe above and beyond possible future trade deals elsewhere. “Looking at this hard choice around customs union or not, the value of our frictionless trade within the European Union is worth more than having the potentially unknown value of trade deals in other parts of the world,” she told Peston On Sunday.

Business leaders are known to be spooked by the hard line taken by France and Germany in recent weeks over the UK’s future relationship with the UK, especially as so many large companies rely on imports of equipment and parts from the continent. In a meeting with May last week, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, stressed that the UK would need to pay to gain access to EU markets and must agree to abide rules laid down in Brussels.

The British government said it had already made good progress in Brexit talks, with agreements in a range of issues such as citizen’s rights and the financial settlement, and it was confident it could negotiate a bespoke trade deal.



“The EU has said they will offer their most ambitious free trade approach and we are confident of negotiating a deep and special economic partnership that includes a good deal for financial services – that will be in the EU’s best interests, as well as ours,” a Department for Exiting the European Union spokeswoman said.

“But, as the prime minister has already made clear, we will be leaving the single market and the customs union after EU exit day.”