Nine out of 10 brokers would vote the same way on Brexit having seen the immediate aftermath of the nation’s decision to leave the EU, a UTB survey has revealed.

Over 300 brokers working in the fields of asset, bridging and development finance replied to the survey and 92% said they would not have changed their mind on the EU referendum with the benefit of hindsight.

However 2% of respondents indicated that they would have switched their vote from ‘Leave’ to ‘Remain’ and exactly the same number would switched their vote from ‘Remain’ to ‘Leave’, cancelling each other out. And 4% of respondents either didn’t or couldn’t vote.

In May of this year, United Trust Bank’s pre-Brexit poll of broker opinion indicated a narrow victory for the Leave campaign with 51% of brokers intending to vote the UK out of the EU and 49% intending to vote to stay. This transpired to be extremely close to the actual referendum result of 52% Leave to 48% Remain.

Article 50

United Trust Bank’s survey also revealed that the majority of brokers are not expecting Theresa May to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty this year. And 47% expect the new PM to begin the formal process of withdrawing from the EU in the first half of 2017 and a further 18% by the end of 2017. Some 9% of respondents don’t believe that Article 50 will be triggered at all.
Harley Kagan, managing director of United Trust Bank, said: “Despite all that’s happened in the aftermath of the EU referendum, the vast majority of brokers on both sides of the debate would not change their minds on the Brexit question. This would indicate that they were prepared to accept the short term economic consequences of a decision to leave the EU or just didn’t believe the severity of the warnings in the first place.

“At UTB there’s a sense of cautious optimism about the opportunities the next few years might bring. There’s certainly no shortage of new enquiries for funding across all divisions of the Bank and it serves as a reminder that much of our everyday lives will go on as before, largely unaffected.

“We will still need to buy groceries. We will still need to travel, we will still need somewhere to live and we will still want to improve our homes and drive new cars. There are farmers, hauliers, developers, dentists, in fact all types of businesses and industry which supply the goods and services that we all consume every day, whether we’re part of the EU or not.

“Many of them will want to keep growing and will require financial support to do so. These businesses will rely on lenders like United Trust Bank to help them achieve their goals and brokers to guide them to the most suitable solutions. We stood by our customers throughout the credit crunch and we will continue to support customers throughout the Brexit.”