Vocal Voices

So it's been 3 weeks since the fateful decision. We have a new PM, the better part of a new cabinet, the £ has stabilised and is starting to grow again. The BOE has finally stopped talking and doing and is sitting down to do what it should have done in the first place, namely analysing and assessing before acting.

The world hasn't stopped. Investment hasn't stopped. Panic is over and everyone is settling down to see how things go. Come August 4th, if the BOE hold's fire and does nothing, the £ could very easily come roaring back stronger than it was before. Defying the recession and all the doom mongering that went with it. Especially as the market, right now, is pricing in more moves by the BOE. If they don't then THE £ will suddenly surge in reaction and investment will follow.

I'm willing to bet that the first meeting with the new Chancellor and Carney is likely to start with "Now listen very closely"...

Next step? A timetable to trigger A50. It's quite possible that this may not be triggered till after the recess, but it may be that they trigger it before so that they can have a fait accompli before the debate in parliament over the petition demanding we have another referendum.

British exports are on a roller coaster right now. Many of them are booming as the buyers realise that the value of the £ won't stay down long and are getting in there now to make hay. Others are more muted.

There may even be a modest rise in inflation due to the drop in the value of the £ which impacts energy import prices. Even further staying the hand of the Bank with interest rates.

The only thing I can hope for is that nothing is done in a rush to placate markets or politicians. Do it right and do it once. It would seem, from reports, that up to 100 of our trade negotiators work for the EU right now. Time to get them home with promises of better wages and decent tax regimes (they only pay 25% as EU employees). Which, of course, would give us the inside track on what the EU wants to negotiate.

I'm now hopeful that things will get back on track. Sadly I would have liked to see Corbyn try to win an election but, perhaps, the country is a little too polarised right now.

Brexit Minister, David Davis, has already said that A50 will not be invoked before the end of the year, or early 2017. His reasoning is that the team(s) need to look at the details and then work together to formulate strategies for the individual negotiations to come. I do not think it is a bluff, it sounds more like good practice, and I note that they are mainly Brexiteers doing this.

Senior economists are convinced that the interest rate hold was more down to unfolding events in the hours leading up to the announcement - new PM, new cabinet. They expected the rate to drop to 0.25% for economic reasons, and they expect those reasons to still exist come August.

It is all to play for, but I think that I will be holding tightly on to my hat for a long time to come.

And May has just said it's a UK approach or no approach. Well she's going to have to climb down on that one or we won't trigger it in the next decade.... No politician in Scotland is going down for approving that....

At least they are doing what I wanted all along. Not being stampeded over the cliff and not pandering to Brussels.

I'm sure they thought they were being very clever with Article 50 and insisting that only the country who wanted to leave could trigger it and only the current leader of government could do it. Now they are faced with a real problem. They are being impacted by the UK referendum every day and they want us to get on with triggering the article so they can pull us out of the decisions by the very fact that the UK is leaving. But the UK is not doing it.

All those things on the back burner are starting to burn the house down but they're struggling not to do them until we've officially asked to leave. That way they can make decisions without our interference. Now they're stuck. The deal with Turkey, decisions on Russia and the Ukraine, lots of decisions and they still haven't got rid of us.

I must admit, on a side note, that I was always sceptical of the EU BS around "leaving cannot be contemplated". Clearly they contemplated it or Article 50 would not exist. So what they meant was that the UK could not leave because they needed us....

So now we're off the express rocket to the stars and on the slow boat to China. Hopefully the markets will react to that, get back on track and when we do invoke A50 they won't panic again.