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It will be one of the most significant votes that parliament has held for many years theresa may is on a mission now that her brexit deal has been signed off in brussels she is determined to get it through parliament but have any hope of convincing the skeptics on both sides of the debate she knows she must first win over the people of britain and their employers
On it will depend whether we move forward together into a brighter future or open the door to yet for division and uncertainty no employers are more important than those in the city of london it accounts for up to 20% of the economy and in the last financial year generated 72 billion pounds of attacks and i’d come on brexit that is bad for the city will be bad
For britain but city london is europe’s gateway to global capital it’s going to remain a great global financial center whatever happens through brexit i’m not saying we won’t lose some business as a result of brexit of course we will we’ll do some business and some jobs as a result many city financier still bemoaned the impending end of the uk’s membership of
The single market and its system of being able to sell products and services from london to clients across the eu and our so-called pass porting rules well we still think that the mutual recognition approach and would have been the best but that’s water under the bridge because that’s fairly not going to happen for katherine mcginnis policy chief at the city of
London corporation it still clearly rankles that the government has been arguing in brussels for a thin financial services deal based on maintaining parallel regulations a so-called equivalence model rather than mutual recognition a more bespoke and ambitious concept that many financier had lobbied for there’s a lot wrong with the current equivalence model it’s
Intensely political it’s not permanent and decisions can be withdrawn on as little as 30 days notice and it only covers about a third of the sector but we’ve got to start from somewhere there’s an indication in what we’ve seen at the future framework and you know for the of an intention to build on supervisory cooperation and regulatory cooperation we’ve got to
Build for optimists the most important part of the deal is the 21 months transition period that will follow brexit march 2019 because that will allow the skeletal principles of a future relationship in financial services to be built out into an enhanced equivalent arrangement as they foot it as it stands in uk is leaving the single market so the challenge now is
How we move on to creating this new equivalents regime i absolutely accept there are about half this or a half a page of this in the political declaration but that comes the whole economic relationship and the critical point is it’s in there and so we can build on it there is a hook for the negotiations it talks about autonomy it talks about a closed structured
Regulatory relationship between the uk and the eu and there of course going to be negotiations around that but the point is that we’re moving i think in the same direction and that is about making sure that there’s the best possible within the permutations and the limitations that we have the best possible economic relationship on financial and related professional
Services thin as the financial services model might look for now most in the city feel that it’s time to rally behind the deal that mrs. mae has struck i think that finance has shown that it can adjust and build in significant change into its plans and future strategy the snag though is that parliament is rather less enthusiastic than the city and that prospect has
Convinced many former remain campaigners and even some hardline brexit errs that the right thing to do is to ask the country to vote again if parliament is unable to support the current deal then i do think there is a case for a second vote but only if parliament is unable to support the current deal because i think in those circumstances we’re faced with a very
Stark choice which is moving towards an exit of the eu without a deal and i think that is a calamity and i think that is a disaster and that is something for which we are not ready and for which plans have not been properly made if we follow the path to a no deal financiers aren’t really talking of armageddon they do stress there are some key outstanding issues
Relating to data access and the continuity of certain derivatives and insurance contracts but banks asset managers and insurance companies have detailed contingency plans in place to cope with a cliff edge one thing is for sure though the economic disruption of an odile brexit will be significant more jobs and activities will move to frankfurt paris and dublin
And the tax take from the city in 2019 will not be 72 billion pounds
Transcribed from video
City of London divided over Brexit By Financial Times