This from a friend in the financial services industry, when asked about his thoughts.
How My Sector of Financial Services will be affected:
There have been 2 Parliamentary Reports in to how Brexit will hit our FS. The HoL report is published and the HoC Report may have been published without agreement to the Leave MPs on the Select Committee because they wouldn't accept the findings and walked out!
However both Reports found that:
FS accounts for £61 billion income to the U.K.
£8 billion is from direct selling of insurance products from the U.K. To the EU.
There are 5,600 firms in my sector that do this business, some very large and generalised, some tiny but very specialised like my firm.
All these firms do business in the Single Market via "passport rights" these are agreed by each of the 28 countries Financial Regulators.
In the U.K. There are two Groups that represent the firms that do business in the EU.
For Brokers ( like my firm) it is British Insurance Brokers Association. BIBA
For Insurers it is the London Market Group. LMG.
Both BIBA and LMG form study groups to report to May's Government about the effects Hard Brexit would have. These were works in progress before the January Lancaster House Speech where she said we are coming out of the Single Market.
In both these Reports the figures of £61 billion and sub limit of £8 billion were established beyond doubt.
The number of jobs dependent on these FS is 2.1 million U.K. Jobs. About 1 million in insurance services and 1.1 million in Banking.
So currently without a trade agreement that "replicates" the single Market in two years time all these services and jobs will disappear over to the EU.
However, my Market (insurance) can't hang around to wait, and most including Lloyd's of London are establishing trading based in the EU now.
Lloyd's has moved its European business to a new underwriting platform in Brussels after 328 years of dealing this business in London. Jobs will follow.
Companies like mine are already establishing offices and presence in other EU countries.for my firm it will probably be in Dublin. But the regulator there says we can't have a "plaque on the wall" and we must do business from Dublin, so jobs will follow.
All this is happening now, because of May's Lancaster House Speech! Which she says she has authority to do from the Referendum result. For many including the BIBA and LMG working groups, that assertion seems fanciful because the Referendum Act did not say what would happen after the result apart from it going back to Parliament.
So this "we are out of the single market" idea appears to be the "political will" of this Brexit Cabinet, not necessarily the "will of the people".
Does it matter to the ordinary person in the street?
Yes it will, because we will lose all that income that will now be held in foreign banks, lose the taxes on it, no Corporation Tax, and no NI or PAYE from the jobs that move from the UK to the EU, and some of these are some are the highest paid workers in this country.
Then there are all the jobs that will be lost that rely on the economy driven by these high paid workers.
The child care, builders, plumbers, electricians, estate agents and letting agents, and high street Bistro,Coffee shops and bakers, butchers, etc etc! The list is endless.
All this uncertainty from one "Speech" May gave!
So I hope this helps when you are faced with the Leave complainers saying it will all be alright!
Because I see it all falling apart right now, not in two years time.
.....about 3,000 miles or so actually, has given forth with his views on Jeremy Corbyn.
