Matthew Elliott, former chief executive of Vote Leave, the campaign group that in 2016 persuaded just enough UK voters they would be better off outside the EU, explained on Wednesday that the country now needs to think about the tangible benefits of Brexit to its financial services industry.
Elliott is now a political adviser to Shore Capital, the investment group whose founder Howard Shore is a prominent backer of the UK’s Conservative party and supporter of Brexit.
Elliott offered his thoughts alongside Shore’s non-executive chairman Xavier Rolet, former head of the London Stock Exchange, and research chief Clive Black.
Sadly, those tangible benefits aren’t immediately obvious anywhere in their 2,800 words.
They can’t quite advocate walking away from all those European rules, perhaps because they were mainly written by Brits
The three admit that whilst the question is quite straightforward, the answer is more involved, multi-faceted, multi-agency and multi-lateral.
It sounds like one of those games of 3D chess Elliott’s old pal Dominic Cummings used to enjoy, possibly even a 4D game.
Apparently, London must remain relevant both to Chinese and US investors and issuers, plus all their intermediaries, while taking a coordinated and well-thought-out approach to Switzerland, sovereign wealth funds, key family offices and the techno-genius of Israel.
Oh, and a strong commercial relationship with the EU would help, too.
Sounds tricky? Actually, it’s quite simple. London just needs to be global and innovative and become a leading centre for cryptocurrency trading, Spacs and maybe have a new segment on the LSE where the stock of any company listed on an exchange anywhere else in the world can also trade.
One is tempted to cry “classic Dom” at this, or perhaps classic Matt.
Merits of Mifid
There are suggestions, inevitably, for deregulation, with the authors saying Mifid merits serious reconsideration.
“To cite one small but telling example: it is ridiculous that financial services companies seeking to put on a conference face a nightmare of sorting ‘paid for’ versus ‘nonpaid for’ invitees.”
Who had their nose put out here, one wonders?
The paper is worth a read, especially on how Solvency II has forced investment out of equity and into government bonds at a time when long-term patient capital is needed especially in life sciences and green technology.
But the three can’t quite advocate walking away from all those European rules, perhaps because they were mainly written by Brits.
That, they say, would be “a little tabloid”.
Have they already forgotten who won them the vote?
Sad!
