What a week of drama and upset! For all the drama in the football, the political and global economic side were even more dramatic – at least from an investment managers’ point of view.
We had suggested last week that the UK government may experience some staffing changes, even when it looked like Theresa May had finally managed to rally her cabinet behind a more economically pragmatic Brexit course. In the overseas press, the resignations of Davis and Johnson over the weekend and Monday were therefore seen as a major setback to May’s leadership. But in the UK, it appeared to be interpreted more as a chance for stabilisation and at long last the possibility of beginning negotiations with the EU rather than having them primarily in the cabinet.
Together with the publication of the government’s white paper / plan for the UK’s Brexit, it now seems almost inevitable that there will not be a substantial break away from the EU when Brexit formally occurs in March 2019. Instead, and as we have now predicted for a while on these pages, it will be a rather soft affair initially, with everything else being developed, negotiated and executed over many years thereafter.
