Friday, December 4, faced with the Brexit negotiations which were slipping, Catherine McGuinness, who chairs the City corporation, summed up her bitterness in one sentence: “Politics took precedence over pragmatism. “ Four and a half years after the vote in favor of leaving the European Union (EU), it could only observe, powerless, the rout of the financial sector it represents. Year after year, each of his demands has been ignored by the successive governments of Theresa May and Boris Johnson. The agreement of Thursday, December 24 only concerns fishing and trade in goods. The City does not appear there at all.
Until the end, fishing, 0.1% of Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) – 0.02%, according to some analysts – and 12,000 jobs, was a crucial negotiating point. Finance, 7% of GDP and 1.1 million jobs, has been ignored. “It seems irrational”, laments Mme McGuinness. During November, Tony Blair, the former prime minister, made the same observation in an interview with a group of European journalists :
“We have just spent several months putting most of our efforts in the defense of our fishing, which represents a very small part of our economy, and practically none in finance, for which we are a leader. global. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to defend the fishery, but one day the UK will have to come back to the real world. “
Douglas McWilliams, head of the consulting firm Center for Economics and Business Research, pulled out his calculator. “Even if all fish in UK waters were caught by UK fishermen, the weight of fishing in the economy would not exceed 0.05%. “ And anyway, that would be way too much fish for the British appetite: “The consumption of fish should double or triple. (…) The biggest beneficiaries of a “no deal” could well have been the British cats. “
Bankers are no longer popular
This attitude of the British governments is a major turning point. At least since Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain’s financial center has been at the heart of UK politics. In Brussels, its diplomats carried the word of the City, defending its lobbying, regulation by regulation. In Downing Street, the financial center was very popular.
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