THOSE who think the Channel Islands are nothing more than a quaint and anachronistic part of the mainland will naturally look to the UK for business, leadership, guidance and help. After all, we import most of our experts, top civil servants and even wealthy landowners from our neighbour to the north. So it’s hardly surprising that some people look at us as a kind of Isle of Wight with tax breaks.

Our economy is obviously deeply dependent on our links with the UK. After all, if you spend most of your time and resources attracting UK-centric business and marketing to UK tourists, it’s hardly surprising that you end up with an economy that relies on the UK and buys in almost everything from the UK. That’s why, for example, the finance sector hangs on every word that the UK Chancellor utters at budget time. He can’t change our tax structure (well, not easily), but he can all but destroy large parts of our finance industry, because of our dependence on British investors and those who want to invest in the UK.
You might conclude that small islands, with few natural resources, don’t have much choice. But we could be ignoring opportunities because of our narrow vision.

It’s obvious that we should look to the ‘mother’ country for support and for business, and indeed we have been very successful in that. Our links with the UK and as an offshore appendage of the City of London have largely been responsible for creating our wealth, so it hasn’t really been necessary to look elsewhere for markets.

Up to a few years ago, it would therefore have been inconceivable to suggest that the Island should go out on its own to try to find business in the Middle East and the Far East. We were doing very nicely relying on UK markets and in any case we didn’t have the confidence to do anything else at the time.

The situation has changed to a certain extent, not least because we and the ‘mother’ country have realised that our interests do not always coincide. We may be small islands, but it has gradually dawned on us that we must fight for our own place in the world. No one else is going to do it for us.

But what has this got to do with the price of eggs? Well, quite a lot actually.
Our near-total reliance on the UK for both imports and exports as well as advice and guidance is a weakness which is limiting our choices and could be costing us money. You only have to look at the experience of the potato industry. If the UK housewife decides that she doesn’t want to pay a premium price for our potatoes over a couple of months of the year, then the whole farming industry suffers.

Luckily, this is rarely the case, and there must still be considerable potential for growth in potato exports because of the strength of the brand and its high profile. The UK is therefore always likely to be the main market for Jersey’s very limited variety of produce. But what about France as at least an important secondary market?

The French know a thing or two about food, and you would imagine that French gourmets would pay a good price for a plateful of Jersey Royals, perhaps covered in creamy Jersey butter. The reason that not many of them get the opportunity is because it’s obviously too much trouble to export to France, compared to the ease of relying on established markets in the UK. The limited transport links alone make it difficult to market to France and its neighbours, which includes Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, which is not much further up the motorway from Jersey than the Midlands.

So we have a tiny island, much closer to France than the UK, and on the doorstep of the biggest single market in the world, but which relies totally on a fickle British market. The financial services industry is not entirely in the same situation, because it acts as a conduit for money flowing into and out of the UK. But it is certainly true that there is plenty of scope to diversify and expand into other markets outside of the UK ‘comfort zone’.

The problem is that no one will try to tap these more difficult markets until they are forced to do so. It was only when the finance sector realised that there could be problems with concentrating too heavily on UK business that they started to look further afield to the Far East and the Gulf.

It may be true that we don’t have many advantages in international trade and services, but we are well placed on the edge of a huge European trading bloc where we need capture only a tiny portion of the market to be hugely successful. Yet we still concentrate on dear old Blighty.

For example, anyone looking at the map would naturally assume that it would be far easier to get from Jersey to France than from Jersey to the UK, when the reverse is true. So why is it that transport links with France aren’t as good as those with the UK? It’s because we don’t consider it important enough.

Indeed, the French are keen to foster closer ties with the islands and the government is even prepared to spend money to help the process. Jersey says it’s keen to foster links with France and States members attend a lot of meetings. But any practical support is sadly lacking.

That’s a shame because we are not only ignoring valuable business opportunities, but we are failing to try to learn from our immediate neighbours. We may be keen to compare our performance with UK standards and use UK benchmarks, but in many areas Britain lags behind Europe. So matching or exceeded UK standards could still mean the Island lags behind our near neighbours.

Looking more towards France, the rest of Europe and indeed the world, does not mean abandoning the UK. It just means appreciating that there is a bigger world out there beyond Weymouth or Gatwick.

But if we don’t broaden our horizons as a small, grown-up jurisdiction keen to demonstrate our independence, then we must expect to be treated as a slightly more remote Isle of Wight, rather than a part of Europe.
Peter Body is editor of Business Brief magazine