It's astonishing how little Willy Hutton knows
Given that it always takes more time to clean up intellectual ordure than to create it to concentrate on just the one point here from Willy Hutton:
As British exports stagnate, there is not a nod to the role of trade as a propellant of growth. The UK, as the second largest exporter of services in the world – built on intangibles that sit behind sectors as diverse as finance and the creative industries – is locked out of the country’s largest markets in Europe. It is a growth plan built on sand.
British finance locked out of its largest markets in Europe?
London remains the world’s second-biggest financial center behind New York when infrastructure, reputation and business environment are taken into account, according to the Global Financial Centres Index 2021.
Well, that’s a disastrous result. So is this:
The London Stock Exchange's LCH unit in London clears about 90% of euro interest rate derivatives, a contract widely used by companies in the EU to insure themselves against unexpected moves in borrowing costs.
We can even go further from that same source:
The European Union agreed on Tuesday to prolong until June 30, 2025 permission for Britain's clearing houses to continue serving customers in the bloc, with officials saying it would be the final extension.
Why has the EU done so? Because 90% of the business is in London, that’s why. What we’ve got here is an extreme and clear example of the usual and general truth. The people who benefit from a service are the people who buy it, not those who provide it. That’s why they buy it, see? London finances business in the EU. The EU - and the businesses in it - benefit from that financing. As to why it’s all in London, the EU’s own evaluation is:
The place of London as a major financial centre largely predates the single market and relies on a dynamic business environment, the predictability of the British legal system, the worldwide use of English as language for business, and the attractiveness of a cosmopolitan city.
It’s not about trade barriers nor being inside them. In fact, London has often benefitted from being well outside regulatory systems - the Eurobond market is proof of that.
We do not pretend that everything is rosy in this financial garden but it’s also true that the old, apocryphal, headline applies here - “Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off”. This being something the EU recognises. The City, those London based wholesale financial markets, is not locked out of its largest markets. Entirely the opposite.
Now “someone is wrong on the internet” is not really a reason to stay up at night. But it is worth pointing out how Willy Hutton is an exemplar of that more general point. Those who would plan our lives, the economy, the country, always do seem to be those with the least knowledge of how it all currently works. Which isn’t, when you think of it, all that good a method of deciding what to do next. For if you’ve no clue where you currently are then how can you decide a path to any destination?