Pity the City
Funnily enough just yesterday I was talking about the FX markets and this morning I wake up to discover The City is pleading for Government help over visas..
You might not think that the Square Mile, the wealthiest part of the UK by a country mile, is deserving of much sympathy; it should have enough money to deal with an immigration system.
But The City is the financial capital of Europe and a centre of global importance, it pulls in talent from around the world by paying highly motivated, educated and skilled people very large sums of money.
Brexit however makes that more difficult and now it is asking the Government for temporary visas for younger workers and cheaper visas for everyone else. Just wait until Covid travel restrictions end and they find out how difficult sending UK staff into the EU to work is.
It is just one more piece of grit in the machine that the Government has put there.
Why have they done this is all too clear, ministers were warned, lobbied, had detailed explanations and advice and they deliberately as an act of policy ignored all of it. The policy was, Brexit is good.
Ever since Theresa May’s three red lines the end result has been clear, these shortages and problems were inevitable. Michael Barnier even draw a nice diagram explaining it all in a fashion a 5 year old could understand. But Brexit is good.
The Government acted like the three monkeys, it did not hear, see or speak. Even worse, much of this damage could be undone with sensible policies and international cooperation, as Keir Starmer made clear yesterday. But that is not going to happen with this Government in charge because, Brexit is good.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.