Typically excellent piece from @dsquareddigest The exponential insight is especially neat. Think of it a little like fishing...today you can’t export oysters to the EU (because you simply aren’t allowed to), tomorrow you don’t have a fish exporting business (to the EU).

The extremely small minority of people who known anything about this who think that Brexit will be good for the City make a number of arguments which I shall address in turn...
1. They need us more than we need them. This is a variant of the German carmakers argument. And we know how that went...Business will follow the profit opportunity and if that has moved then so will the business...
And what do we mean by us / we. We’re not talking about massed ranks of Euro investing / trading etc blue blooded British institutions.
Au contraire. We’re talking about the London based subs of US, Asian and indeed European capital markets players...As soon as they think the profit opportunity has moved then so will they...it’s a market innit...
2. The Europeans will never act in a way that might be economically sub optimal.

I refer you to Brexit. But kidding aside, the balance between economic optimality and, to coin a phrase, taking back control is not at all straightforward.
I bet a bazillion notional shillings that many people might consider the benefits of taking back control over a vital national function far far far outweigh an additional economic cost.

I refer you to the financial crisis.
3. But but THE EU IS GOING TO FALL APART IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

Good luck with that.
4. But the U.K. is a speedy fast turning speedboat and the EU is a ponderous sea tanker of weighty regulations.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The U.K. regulators are extremely tough. Arguably tougher than the EU. I refer you to ring fencing. Or the U.K. conduct regime (very scary). The idea that any of this is going to be materially relaxed is for the birds.
5. Freed from the dead hand of Europe, we shall exploit all sorts of wonderful new opportunities.

Well. Maybe. London has a v substantial scale / incumbency advantage. But ofc (as Dan points out) that does not mean that those new opportunities will necessarily arise in London.
The bottom line is that London ain’t going anywhere any time soon as a leading financial services capital.

BUT. There is no way round the fact that Brexit has impaired London’s competitive position. This is an apple falling, water flowing downhill point.

It’s not a debate.
Over time, the damage will range from significant to really quite bad. The possibility of the latter depends on the EU getting its act together re CMU...if it does (debatable) then watch out...

/ends

More from Yet Another Columnist

A quote from this excellent piece, neatly summarising a core impact of Brexit.

The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.


Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.

It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.

In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.

But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.

More from Government

You May Also Like

First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic


Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits

Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time

Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods