UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 232

On October 07 2016 15:36 Morfildur wrote:


I wonder how people will spin that sharp drop - not the biggest since Brexit, but the biggest single drop since then.

"Just a normal currency fluctuation"
"This will be good for British companies"
"Scaremongering Remainers are hurting the market"
"There is no drop"

On October 07 2016 05:40 bardtown wrote:


Uh, Greece?

On October 07 2016 16:24 RvB wrote:

That was a flashcrash due to low liquidity and algorithms. The currency gained back a lot of that after the crash.

Hard Brexit to cost 2,000 Goldman jobs

Wall Street giant to shift third of City staff if single market access is lost
Goldman Sachs is preparing to move almost 2,000 highly paid staff out of London if the government opts for a “hard” break from the EU.
The Wall Street giant will switch nearly one in three of its bankers to rival European cities if Britain loses preferential access to the single market.
The spectre of such a large exodus will escalate fears that a “hard” Brexit could prompt multinationals to cut investments in Britain. Business is increasingly concerned over the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU.
In an open letter this weekend, the CBI and the EEF, which represents manufacturers, said the government should prioritise free trade in its divorce talks with the EU, which begin in March.
Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, urged the government to rule out the “worst aspects” of a hard break. She warned that businesses “cannot continue to operate in the dark” about the government’s intentions. Uncertainty was already affecting decisions over where businesses should invest, Fairbairn added.
Theresa May sent shock waves through global markets last week when she suggested that Britain was heading for a clean break with Europe. The prime minister signalled that controlling immigration would take precedence over access to the single market.
Goldman Sachs employs 6,000 staff in Britain. It is one of scores of banks, fund managers and insurers that have established their European headquarters in London to sell products across Europe.
“US banks are suggesting about 20%-30% of their workforce will go in the event of a hard exit. That number is about right for Goldman Sachs,” said a City source. The EU’s passporting regime allows them to trade freely across the economic bloc. In the event of a hard Brexit, firms could lose this access and be forced to scatter staff across Europe.
A hard Brexit, with a loss of passporting rights, could cut tax revenues by £10bn and cost up to 71,000 jobs, according to consultancy Oliver Wyman.
Chancellor Philip Hammond last week met bankers in New York to try to convince Wall Street that London would remain an attractive destination for investment after Brexit.
Bosses of Citigroup, BNY Mellon and Morgan Stanley told him they would be forced to move jobs out of London, unless Britain secured preferential access to the single market.
US bankers also pleaded with Hammond to throw his support behind the ailing pound. “Banks need to know there is a limit to how much they are going to lose because sterling has become a one-way bet,” said one City source.

By any measure, the pound is having a bad time.

According to a trade-weighted index measuring sterling against a basket of its trading peers, the pound has now slumped to its lowest on record, stretching beyond the introduction of free-floating exchange rates in the 1970s and all the way back to the mid-19th century, according to data compiled by the Bank of England.

The pound’s effective exchange rate, which is weighted to reflect the UK’s trade flows, hit a low of 29.27 on Tuesday – weaker than the depths hit during the financial crisis, Britain’s ejection from the European Rate Mechanism in 1992, and its decision to leave the Gold Standard in the 1930s.

The effective exchange rate has broken fresh ground as the pound has fallen to new 31-year lows against the dollar on the back of jitters about the possibility of a “hard Brexit”. Sterling had slumped to as low as $1.2117 in late US trading on Tuesday.

According to the BoE’s current formula for the trade weighted index – last rejigged back in 2006 – the biggest contributing weights to the basket are Germany (22.5 per cent), US (16.5 per cent), France (12.6 per cent), Italy (8.3 per cent) and Japan (7 per cent ).

Sterling has regained some poise on Wednesday after prime minister Theresa May said she would to hold a parliamentary debate on the UK’s exit proceedings and made conciliatory noises about fighting for “maximum possible” access to EU markets.

But it has since fallen back to just 0.6 per cent up on the day against the dollar at $1.2190 at publication time.

On October 07 2016 15:23 Laurens wrote:
Waking up to see the pound crash another 10%, this holiday keeps getting cheaper.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 13 2016 21:29 bardtown wrote:
1 and a quarter million people is not a tiny margin. That 52% represents more people than 67% who voted to stay in 1975. And of those who voted to remain, how many dislike the EU but voted to stay solely for economic reasons? From the perspective of a Leave voter, I'm still waiting for the EU and Remain voters to engage with Leave concerns like adults.

Juncker thinks the UK will ignore the referendum result and stay, to avoid the risk of leaving the single market - as do a number of British politicians. I don't think it's gloating to try and pull people into the new reality so we can engage with it in a meaningful way instead of rerunning the referendum in every debate to no avail. The longer people continue to make asinine claims that the UK will never leave the EU/single market, the more likely it is that we sleepwalk into real problems when we do.

I think politicians need to understand that there isn't really an internal argument to be had about the single market. The mandate is there to leave it. The entire parliament should be rallying around the same position, because there is really only one logical position: pushing for reform of the single market with a clear, unanimous red line that if freedom of movement isn't significantly changed then they are all willing to back a full withdrawal. At some point the EU will need to address freedom of movement, because it effectively punishes the countries that make the EU sustainable. We put in a huge amount of money for one positive (free market) and a negative (free movement). Meanwhile, most of the countries in the EU receive money in return for two benefits (free market and free movement), and these beneficiaries get to hold their benefactors hostage.