Andrew Cox and Simon Winfield run businesses in the Black Country. Both export to the EU and beyond. Both worry about UK skills shortages and both want more help for manufacturers. But there is one thing they don’t agree on: how to vote in the EU referendum.

Cox believes Britain needs to shake off the constraints of EU membership to flourish. Winfield reckons staying in the EU is vital to his business and to Britain’s prospects.

We got them together to talk red tape, immigration and what Brexit would mean for business.

Trade

For Winfield, the EU’s open market is a big reason to vote remain on 23 June. He runs MacLellan Rubber, a 145-year-old business in Wednesfield supplying products such as seals and rubber matting to other manufacturers. A third of its £2.8m in annual sales comes from exports.

“One of things I dread going back to, and I have been doing this 35 years, is all the paperwork that you had to fill in to export some goods. Whereas now, I raise an invoice, stick it on a vehicle and off it goes,” says the 52-year-old.

Cox disagrees that the EU makes trade easier. If anything, the size of the 28-member bloc has hampered progress on trade deals with other countries.

“It’s a political football match with all 28 teams on the pitch at the same time,” says the 48-year-old. “The EU has gradually changed from being a trade enhancer, to a trade obstacle.”

His company, Cox & Plant, makes 70% of its £7m annual turnover from exports. From a factory in Lye, it sells production line machinery to food manufacturers around the world.

Cox says more companies should look beyond Europe for business. As board director for exports on the Black Country local enterprise partnership (LEP) he wants to see more trade with Asia, but he feels progress is slow.

Regulation

When it comes to EU rules, one man’s red tape is another man’s level playing field, it would seem. Winfield says his rubber company, which employs 15 people, has faced fierce price wars in the UK. The EU helps stem the cost-over-quality trend, he says.

“The EU provides legislation and guidance and controls to say if you are putting a material, polymer or a plastic into this application, it needs to meet this standard and that therefore creates an opportunity for us to sell a quality product with all the service aspects that come with it.”

But Cox, who employs 25 people, does not agree that the EU guarantees a level playing field because corners are being cut in some states. “As Brits we tend to do the right thing. We are polite, we are courteous, we adopt all the rules but not all the 28 states do.”

Immigration

Both Cox and Winfield said immigration is a key concern for Black Country voters. Both believe their region will vote to leave the EU and that turnout will be high.

People are worried about the costs of immigration and of EU membership, says Winfield. “It’s pounds in their pocket that they feel they are losing because of immigration – although they have got no specific examples.”

But he feels differently. “The vast majority of immigrants, I believe, bring something to the UK economy and lord knows we are short of a lot of skills.”

Winfield and Cox, who have taken on apprentices, agree that Britain should do more to address skills shortages.

In the Black Country 16% of working age adults have no qualifications, well above the national rate of 10%, according to the LEP. “Why aren’t we upskilling those people? Rather than deeming them as failing,” says Cox.

Using immigration as a “sticking plaster” is not just bad for the UK economy, he says, but for other EU countries too. “I know from being in Poland, when a lot of the Poles first came over in 2004 it left their hospitals short … We have got to look at the consequences, what do we do to these poorer countries? So Poland has a shocking lack of teachers, doctors, nurses. Is that good for us as the world’s fifth nation to rape and pillage other countries?”

EU economy

Cox is worried that EU membership ties the UK to a shaky economy. It is not just the UK being held back by staying in the club, he adds.

“It’s a broken model and it’s getting bigger. It’s almost like the Titanic: we are heading towards an iceberg and we are bringing more countries in and it’s getting more diverse and I just feel it’s out of control.”

Winfield does not see that as a reason to leave. He retorts: “So to take that analogy, we are getting off on our life boat now and we are in our big ocean and we are looking for a safe port and we are looking for safe harbour. By that definition our economic life is in somebody else’s hands.”

But Cox also fears more immediate risks for the EU economy, in particular from Italy’s troubled banks. “Let’s just say Italy is the new Grexit and Italy literally goes wallop and everybody goes ‘it’s like Britain in ’08 and it needs massive refinancing’. I just wonder how many people who voted to stay in would be bitter.”

But the UK would be affected by an Italian crisis regardless of EU membership, says Winfield. “We are not isolated from these things and we can never be. Banks are international, money flows everywhere.”

Investment

Winfield is worried a Brexit vote will hit investment because trickier trading terms will deter foreign firms. He fears that to compensate, politicians could allow labour laws to be eroded.

“Progressively, we will become less attractive. That’s how we then move into more relaxed labour laws, a more relaxed approach to hiring and firing, a more relaxed approach to minimum wage levels,” he says.

Cox believes money saved from leaving the EU could make up for lost investment. “We are talking about £350m a week, £20bn a year. That £20bn should be spent within the British economy,” he says, referring to figures used by leave campaigners based on the gross sum contributed to the EU last year.

The day after

How will Cox and Winfield feel on 24 June if the referendum has not gone their way?

“If I wake up and we are still in, we will have missed the chance for a new dawn. It will be a missed opportunity and more of the same,” says Cox.

If the vote is to leave, Winfield worries the UK will be viewed as a petulant child. “It’s going to be perceived as more dollies out of the pram,” he says.

“And I think to the argument, we can still trade, you have essentially turned around and said to 500 million people: ‘We want to trade with you but we don’t really like you’. That’s not the Britain that I know.”