Bank of England Backtracks: EU, Not UK, Has Most to Lose from Brexit

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has told MPs that leaving the European Union (EU) is not the biggest threat to financial stability in Britain, and that Brexit actually poses a bigger risk to the continent than it does to the UK.

He said “I am not saying there are not financial stability risks in the UK … but there are greater short term risks on the continent in the transition than there are in the UK”, reports the Daily Telegraph.

This constitutes a substantial about-face for the Goldman Sachs alumnus, who argued during that referendum that voting to leave the EU could hit growth and tip the country into a technical recession.

Following the vote, however, the UK economy has performed strongly. Growth in the construction, services, and manufacturing sectors are at 8-month, 17-month, and 30-month highs, respectively, according to the purchasing managers indices (PMIs) for each sector. PMIs are among the leading indicators for the economic health of a country.

Ewen Stewart, a director at the Global Britain think tank and leading Scottish economist, welcomed Carney’s apparent change of heart, telling Breitbart London he was “baffled” by the central bank’s gloomy pre-referendum forecasts.

“The risks of Brexit do indeed lie with the EU and not the UK … because of the inherent contradictions within the Eurozone,” he confirmed.

“The EU have far more to lose than the UK, especially as it becomes ever more apparent that the UK is well positioned to strike free trade deals with the US, Australia, and other fast-growing regions.”

Andrew Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, has described the Bank’s inaccurate pre-referendum forecasts as a “Michael Fish” moment, recalling the BBC weatherman’s infamous on-air dismissal of a hurricane prediction hours before the Great Storm of 1987 struck Britain.

Richard Tice, co-chairman of the Leave Means Leave campaign, told Breitbart London that Carney was simply “catching up with what we Brexiteers knew all along”.

“The UK will thrive, we have the upper hand and nothing to fear. He should offer to resign given his woeful forecasting track record.”