THE CALAMITY OF UNCERTAINTY FOR BREXIT BRITAIN By Rob McNamara
2020 will go down in history as a hard
Johnson’s government had it all under
that they had this all under control, the
blow to an already weakened economy,
control, we were reassured, and they were
universe threw a corona-shaped curveball.
but what will be its legacy for investor
well on their way to ‘Get Brexit Done’.
The catastrophic loss of life has been
confidence?
devastating. The economy is a secondary There was even optimism from the 3000
victim.
By September 2019, Brexit had already
Chief Financial Officers surveyed by the
made its mark on the UK economy.
DMP, working in collaboration with the
The Bloomberg Brexit Barometer tracks
According to the Decision-Maker Panel
Bank of England, which indicated that
economic well-being in the United
(DMP), set up by Nottingham and Stanford
investment might be set to increase. There
Kingdom and is updated daily, using
universities, investment had reduced
was a real expectation that investment
weather icons to indicate how inclement,
steadily by around 11% while productivity
could grow by as much as 4.6%, an
or not, the state economy is since the vote
had decreased by between 2 and 5% since
increase from 2.4% from the three months
to leave. Today it shows a dark cloud with a
the referendum result hit the headlines.
preceding. It would be absurd to claim
flicker of gif lighting protruding.
Analysts were bracing for hard times, but
that uncertainty had been significantly
at least ref reshed voter confidence in
dialled down, but investors were
MORE STORMY WEATHER
the Conservative agenda had put a little
beginning to see some strong reasons to
There can be no denying the fact that
fire back into the negotiation process.
invest once more in the UK.
much of the economic trouble right
Investors might have begun feeling like perhaps things were on the up.
IF ONLY THINGS WERE SO SIMPLE
now stems from the early impacts of COVID-19 and the lockdown, and not
The last thing the government needed
from Brexit itself. Yet both COVID-19 and
In January 2020, The Investor Confidence
was a global pandemic. Perhaps this
Brexit mean uncertainty, and uncertainty
Index had jumped by 21% to its highest
is why it took so long to accept the
is what investors are agitated about. The
level since November 2015, with increasing
magnitude of this new virus; they simply
combination is intimidating.
interest in UK investment. Traction was
could not believe their bad luck. Having
steady and the fearmongering had died
fought so hard to inject certainty back
down somewhat across the media. Boris
into the economy and reassure the public
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