There were no prizes for guessing what the first question would be for the latest business Topical Talks roundtable.

The event took place in the boardroom at Isle of Man Newspapers just hours after the Conservatives led by Boris Johnson won a thumping majority in the UK general election.

The Tories won a total of 365 seats in the House of Commons while Labour returned 203 MPs to parliament.

The first item for discussion was the outcome of the election.

Isle of Man Newspapers editor Richard Butt, chairing the discussion, asked the panel whether it was good or bad news for the Isle of Man.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle said: ’We remain neutral but anything that gives the UK the opportunity to grow and be successful is in the best interests of the Isle of Man because 80% of our trade is with the UK.’

He said that for too long the decision makers in the UK had ’been in the mud’ and unable to do anything because there had been no working majority for the government in Parliament.

’If you have got a majority there is clarity, whether you agreed with Brexit or not, and again we have remained neutral on that. But business wants certainty on what is going to happen.

’And if they are now going to be able to offer certainty then hopefully some of the investment that has been held back will trickle through.’

He said it looked as if it was now certain the UK would now leave the EU on January 31 and then the UK will have until the end of next year to negotiate ’the real detail’ of a trade deal with the EU.

He told the participants: ’We have just got to closely monitor it.’

Mr Butt suggested there was little the island could actually do because everything was happening elsewhere in the UK and EU.

In reply Mr Quayle agreed there was nothing the island could do to impact the outcome of what the UK agrees with the European Union.

However, he argued that he had a written undertaking from the UK whereby there was a strong line of feedback to civil servants in Whitehall.

’We are able to meet with the UK negotiators to put over any of our concerns. When they are having meetings, if something comes along that could cause significant impact for the island, or there is an opportunity there, the negotiators will understand the Isle of Man’s position.’

He added: ’We haven’t got a crystal ball but if you are at the table and speaking to the people at the coalface in the negotiations, if you have an inkling, and the sooner you know what is going to happen, the quicker you can respond.’

Gary Lamb, chief executive of Manx Telecom, said: ’Whether you agree or not (with the result of the election) then at least we can now get all the uncertainty of Brexit out of the way, and that will help us enormously.

’From a telecoms point of view I don’t see a massive change, it will be about getting rid of that uncertainty.’

Nigel Simpson, head of international markets, Zurich International, said: ’It’s about customers starting to make decisions again rather than deferring decisions, which we have seen a lot of.

’It has been a bit stagnant in that decision making process for a long while.’

Ian Plenderleith, group managing director, Manx Gas, said the uncertainty and the impact on the pound/dollar ’has had some impact on our business’ during the political deadlock over Brexit before the election.

He stressed the company had to pay for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) in dollars and it was a significant cost for the business.

But it appeared there would now be more of a certainty over the ’direction of traffic’.

And even in the hours since the election result the pound had already risen sharply against the dollar and he had been pleased with this because currency instability and fluctuations can be problematic for Manx Gas.

Seamus Nugent, managing director, Dandara, said they had seen uncertainty with their customer base in the UK.

’It is one of the biggest decisions people make in their lives when they decide to move home.

’Now there is some certainty for people who were putting off major decisions in their life because they did not know what their employment prospects were going to be, worries about taxation and a lot of other things.

’There will now be certainty for the next five years and possibly another term in office after that (for the Conservative government).

’As far as we are concerned it is a good result.’

Peter Boxer, executive director of external relations in the Cabinet Office, said the general message has now changed ’from what we are not. We are now feeling more confident about saying what we are and I think extolling some of the virtues of the Isle of Man, rather than being defensive about what we are not.’

Stuart Chivers, head of banking at Isle of Man Bank, said: ’It will be interesting to see if anyone is holding back on investment.’

He added that in the island people had been looking for a bit of certainty and now we were starting to get that.

Mr Nugent of Dandara said it was all about business confidence and this could also include people looking to sell their businesses in the UK and then moving to the island for retirement purposes.

Mr Boxer said the easy part now was knowing what was going to happen on January 31, that was pretty clear with the majority the prime minister has won. But he suggested it would be ’incredibly difficult’ for the prime minister to get a deal within months ’when you consider it took seven years for the Canadian trade agreement to be sorted out’.