Brexit Liberating if May Seizes the Chances in Asia
Comment of the Day

April 10 2017

Commentary by David Fuller

Brexit Liberating if May Seizes the Chances in Asia

Here is the opening and also a concluding section of this topical article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for The Telegraph:

“I’m a Remainer but there are more important issues for the British economy than whether or not we are members of the European Union. Maybe even some good could come from leaving,” he said.

Whether Theresa May’s Tory Party is culturally disposed to meet this challenge is an open question. In his view the May government has been exasperatingly slow out of the starting gate: it has dropped the ball badly in Asia; and risks starving the country of vitally needed foreign talent with the wrong kind of immigration curbs.

Jim O’Neill, who resigned from his post as Treasury minister last year after a string of policy disputes, said Theresa May has been skillful in handling talks with the EU. Nobody in sophisticated circles pays much attention to the tabloid dichotomy of “hard” and “soft” Brexits at this stage, an issue that has been overtaken by events.

Yet she is surrounded by advisers with insular views who do not understand how fast the wider world is changing. “These people lack strategic perspective. We should have a minister almost permanently camped in China trying to do trade deals, but they simply don’t think about China when the get out of bed. It is not in their DNA,” he said.

And:

For all his criticism of the Government, he says the headline posturing over Brexit is largely aimed at placating elements of the Tory party and press. “The actual policy is much more nuanced,” he said.

There will have to be some kind of free trade deal for the car industry given the complex cross-border supply chains. “It must be something close to the single market. If we fall back to WTO rules, there will be serious trouble,” he said.

Surprisingly, Lord O’Neill is less worried about the City, where he had a ring-side seat for decades and learnt to judge the reflexes of the American and Asian finance houses.

“People have exaggerated the risks. As we creep through the weeks it is pretty obvious that the big global players are going to shift marginal operations out of London, but the idea that large swaths of the financial industry will decamp to Frankfurt and Paris is just crazy,” he said.

“They don’t have the social and human infrastructure, and the more imaginative EU leaders know that a flourishing City is actually good for Europe,” he said.

“I didn’t want Brexit but, basically, we can cope.”

David Fuller's view

Theresa May’s Government has been “slow out of the starting gate” because no one in David Cameron’s government expected a national vote in favour of Brexit, least of all the former Prime Minister.  Slow is frustrating for those of us who voted for Brexit, but all but irrelevant relative to the long-term outlook for a country regaining its sovereignty and role as a global trading nation.

Most UK ministers will lack a strategic perspective and the international experience to deal with the challenges and opportunities of Brexit, having been locked within the closed-shop EU for most of their careers.  Additionally, they are career politicians.  Therefore, taking a leaf from Donald Trump, Mrs May would be wise to recruit a UK Development Organisation of highly experienced and internationally successful British bankers and businessmen, to work with the Government. 

Among Trump’s best decisions have been his choices of Cabinet Ministers.  They include few Republican Senators or Congressmen, but there has never been a more experienced US Cabinet, in my opinion.  Mrs May needs a similar team to put this country on its strongest footing.    

Here is a PDF of AEP's article.

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