As news today broke that Theresa May was postponing today’s crucial Brexit vote, Salford residents and experts alike were lining up to slam her progress.

Alex Davies from the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce said he was ‘not particularly surprised’ when informed of the delay.

He said: “It’s just another case of the Government pushing everything further and further into the future.

“Throughout the entire Brexit process, there’s been the issue of taking the major inconsistencies with what we’re trying to achieve and just constantly saying ‘We’ll deal with that on another day'”.

Unhappy locals

And residents in Salford were equally unimpressed for different reasons.

One said: “I just think most people don’t really know what it’s all about.

“We didn’t have enough time to take in what it entailed, all the issues, and people are just getting fed up with it.”

And another said: “We can choose our laws by our-self, I think we should stay separate now, because we voted to Leave.”

Mr. Davies also spoke about what he saw as the reasons behind Salford voting for Brexit in 2016 by a bigger margin than the national result, and what effects whatever Brexit deal could have on local businesses.

He said: “I think the Government’s main interpretation of the the vote definitely tended to focus on the issue of control and it seems to have taken the issue as a key driver behind the Brexit process.

“In Salford, you do see a slightly disjointed area, big modern things like Media City, and some areas that are obviously very deprived.

“I think the main changes for most businesses are skills, lots of major sectors across Greater Manchester are already having difficulties recruiting people.

“Construction, manufacturing, digital, they’re all having problems recruiting people and they’re all sectors which are heavily reliant on workers from the EU.

“We’ve had members at the Chamber of Commerce tell us that they’ve had staff leave already because they don’t feel secure about the future.

“Anything that makes it more difficult for businesses to access the labour that they need from across the world could potentially be the number one impact in the short term for most companies.”

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