CBI, TUC say 'national emergency' demands Brexit plan B in strongly worded joint letter. MPs and ministers must heed it

The representative bodies of workers and employers insist that avoiding no deal is "paramount"

CBI Director General Carolyn Fairbairn has joined TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady in calling for a Brexit plan B (Reuters)

When the TUC and the CBI put out a joint statement, and use unusually strong language in it, politicians should listen. We should all listen

When they use terms like “national emergency” it’s time to think very, very hard.

They did that today in a letter to the Prime Minister, appealing for an “urgent meeting” to express their grave concerns about Brexit and calling for a “Plan B”.

The CBI’s involvement is particularly noteworthy because the body had backed Theresa May’s deal, albeit queasily.

It stuck with her, too, despite vocal opposition from parts of its membership, notably a group of young entrepreneurs who urged a rethink in a letter warning that the deal had clear “negative implications” and would “create a worse business climate than what we currently enjoy”.

Despite enduring some vicious barbs at the hands of Brexiteers, notably Boris f- business Johnson, its director general Carolyn Fairbairn remained steadfast.

She has been an ally to May, and a far more loyal one than some of the people she calls her “honourable friends”.

That’s why this letter is so significant. Conservatives used to listen to the CBI in the days when they felt themselves to be the “party of business”.

Chancellor Philip Hammond says they still are, even if their current behaviour speaks otherwise, and may lead to many more firms quitting the UK if the no deal route is pursued.

Threre's also the fact that it has signed the statement with the TUC and is marching in lockstep with it..

There isn’t the sort of enmity between industry’s biggest lobby group and the umbrella body for its unionised employees today that there has sometimes been in the past.

Fairbairn and TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady have established a good working relationship, and shown the ability to collaborate effectively where their interests are aligned.

But even though they mostly disagree politely, they do disagree, frequently and profoundly, across a range of areas.

Not on this one.

Avoiding a no deal, they say, is “paramount”, and they call upon the government to “acknowledge the reckless damage it would cause” while recommitting itself to avoiding the outcome.

They also believe an extension to Article 50 has become “essential” (as does a majority in Parliament), with a view to finding a way forward. They oppose the current binary, and false, choice of deal or no deal that May is presenting and believe it is time for a new approach, whether through Parliament holding the much discussed series of indicative votes or other means.

They sign off with this: “We cannot overstate the gravity of this crisis for firms and working people.”

No one of sound mind could. But May appears to have completely lost the plot.

It is thus down up to the more sensible members of her Government, and her Parliamentary colleagues, to heed what these two important organisations are saying.

The same, it must be said, applies to those sitting with and behind Jeremy Corbyn, whose childish storming out of a meeting because the Independent Group’s Chukka Umunna was there at a time of national crisis reflected extremely poorly on a man who would be our Prime Minister.