Samizdata

Recent UK gross domestic forecast predictions, issued this week via the glum figure of UK finance minister Philip Hammond, have encouraged some of my friends who are EU Remainers to shout about how Brexit is damaging Britain, we are going to lose tens of thousands of jobs to the continent, or wherever, etc, etc. The rage is not dying, in fact. Some of the language (Brexit supporters are “retarded” being a recent one) is not becoming milder. We haven’t yet reached the acceptance phase after the initial shock and anger.

Apart from the devaluation of sterling after June last year, there hasn’t been all that much of a shift on the economics front. The underlying performance of the UK economy does not appear to have altered that much. Some American banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan talk of shifting some business to the continent to create subsidiaries in anticipation of any EU access shenanigans, as I would expect, but it hardly fits with a Biblical level of terror to justify some of the vehement language I see on forums such as Facebook.

Assume we must take seriously the risk of life outside the joyous embrace of the EU Single Market, this is worth considering, from Tory MP and former minister, Peter Lilley:

The Single Market is talked about as if it were some inner sanctum accessible to a privileged few. In fact, every country has access to the Single Market – with or without tariffs. The Single Market programme, which I implemented, involved harmonising product rules – sensible, since businesses can now make one product range for the European market, not 28. But that benefits American and Japanese exporters as much as German or British firms. Although often invoked as particularly benefiting UK service companies, in fact UK service exports to the EU have grown less rapidly since the Single Market reforms than any member state except Greece and Italy

He also responds to the point that apparently, by being outside the EU, the UK will now submit to EU rules without being able to influence them:

People assume Britain benefits from participating in setting these rules. But rules provide a framework within which all companies operate – not an advantage to any individual country. Britain set the rules of tennis but rarely wins Wimbledon! British exports to the EU have grown less rapidly since the Single Market than they did before 1993, less than our partners’ and much less than non-EU countries’ exports! Maybe that is partly because we suffer EU regulations on 100% of our companies (costing our economy billions of £s) whereas non-EU firms need only comply with EU regulations on activities carried out within the EU.

And on the “passporting” issue that comes up:

How important is the right to passport services to the EU? Passporting lets financial institutions operate throughout the EU via branches supervised by their home country regulator without seeking authorisation from local regulators. Having introduced the Single Market measures, I decided to make a speech extolling how they had removed barriers to trade, not least through passporting. Unfortunately, my officials could not find a single company doing business it previously could not do! Banks were almost invariably operating, not through branches, but via subsidiaries which still needed local authorisation and regulation. (Emphasis mine.)

And on the terror that outside the EU, the UK will be hurt, Mr Lilley looks at EU-regulated mutual funds and alternative investment funds regulation (private equity, real estate, private equity, etc):

Since then the UCITS, MiFID and AIFM directives have extended passporting rights to other financial service providers who do take advantage of it. However, most UCITS funds choose to operate via subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Dublin without causing an exodus of jobs from London. Also the AIFM directive provides for recognition of equivalent standards of regulation by non-EU providers which is intended to be granted to Hong Kong and Singapore, so could scarcely be refused to the UK post Brexit.

In other words, you don’t have to be in the EU to manage investments sold within its borders. And yet if you take some of the Remainer arguments at face value, you would think that the UK is to be cast into a dark, lonely place.

A final thought. One of my Remainer co-jousters talks of the folly of the UK “going it alone”, as he claimed we had done after 1945. That, however, not only ignores our membership of NATO but also the UK’s web of trade with not just the continent of Europe, but also the old Commonwealth nations and places such as Argentina, and of course the US. The UK was hardly living under a rock during the period before EEC membership began in 1973, and further, that membership involved slapping tariffs on many of those countries. As Mr Lilley says, it has taken ages for the EU to hammer out free trade deals with nations such as India, China, etc, and to improve on what we have with the US. (I have even seen some of my Remainer friends dismiss this range of countries as “minor”, or “colonial outposts”). So let me get this straight: the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, parts of Latin America, the Pacific-Rim, etc, are “minor”, but the European Union is a powerhouse. Great, got it.

Have a good weekend everyone.