A calm voice of sanity

[Workingman]

However, their are other views, the presidents of BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have other ideas. In interviews with the Today programme yesterday came these:

Blackrock president Rob Kapito goes on to say that international companies with offices in the UK are already looking at possibly moving staff abroad.

In an interview with Today from his New York office, Morgan Stanley president Colm Kelleher also talks of the lack of clarity about what exactly Brexit will look like.

"It is that uncertainty which is causing problems," he says.

"You will see a slowdown in investment into the UK because people and corporations like certainty before they invest. So the sooner we get some clarity on where we're heading the better."

Blackrock president Rob Kapito goes on to say that international companies with offices in the UK are already looking at possibly moving staff abroad.

"I don't think there's any firm, any good firm, that has not already started looking at real estate in different areas outside the UK in case they have to move larger operations," he says.

"There's no-one that doesn't have people looking at tax implications, investment implications, manufacturing implications, so being one of the largest investors in the globe, we're very concerned about the future economics to a lot of corporations and how it'll affect them."

Colm Kelleher, president of US bank Morgan Stanley, tells the Today Programme that London's financial services will be hit by the UK leaving the European Union.

"I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as a result of Brexit. The issue is how much," he tells Dominic O'Connell.

New figures showing that nearly 5,500 UK finance firms use "passporting rights" to trade in the EU has focused minds again on the cost of Britain leaving the single market.

New figures showing that nearly 5,500 UK finance firms use "passporting rights" to trade in the EU has focused minds again on the cost of Britain leaving the single market.

"I am convinced that London will retain its reputation and prestige as a global financial services centre, but clearly some size of our businesses will have to be moved out of London and into Europe with the absence of any passporting agreement," Mr Kelleher says.

"It's very hard to ascertain what that means at the moment. I do think generally though that capital markets in Europe will shrink as a result of this."

So not everyone is in agreement and only time will tell who was right.

[Suff]

So not everyone is in agreement and only time will tell who was right.

Absolutely. But the tone may not have changed 180deg, but at least 160deg, about the impact of Brexit. At the height of the campaign the world was going to end the day after, penalty budgets, BOE going overboard, companies crashing, worse impact than the worst crash the modern world has seen, raining acid and brimstone....

Bit of an anticlimax really.

The bit about the "certainty" is interesting too. Because that is partially levelled at the EU 27. The UK can't tell them how it will be, only the remaining 27 can because they are, in the end, the ones who have to agree. If they think the UK is going to roll over and be raped just because they can't do business easily, they'd better think again. Something they will be doing anyway.

There were some key points there in that statement. Especially around the implications, tax, investment, manufacturing etc...

The UK may not be the safe haven it has been for over 40 years, but, equally, the reason the UK was a safe haven was because of the hostile environment the rest of the EU presents to companies. Especially Anglo Saxon companies.

As you say, time will tell.

I will comment if the message goes downhill, I won't ignore it. But right now the message is all uphill backtracking from the doom and gloom that was painted before the vote.