The UK’s top financial services firms have pushed to be excluded from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plans to reset with the EU.
The firms argue that it cost significant time and resources to disconnect the financial services sector from Brussels post-Brexit, and that it would not be possible to simply reintegrate back into the old system.
“Ten years ago equivalence would have been very valuable, but now the world has moved on,” Kerstin Mathias, International Affairs Director of the UK Finance trade body, told the Financial Times.
This was echoed by Miles Celic, Chief Executive of TheCityUK, which represents the financial services industry.
“Rejoining the single market or a customs union would not be a simple upgrade. The UK would risk trading flexibility for uniformity: less scope to shape its own rules and fewer chances to cut bespoke deals beyond Europe,” he told the paper.
The reaction from the financial services sector comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets “if it’s in our national interest”.
Speaking to the BBC, it would be “better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment”, in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
However, he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement.
“I think we should get closer, and if it’s in our national interest to have even closer alignment with the single market, then we should consider that, we should go that far.
“I think it’s in our national interest to go further.”
“I actually think that now we’ve done deals with the US, which are in our national interest, now we’ve done deals with India which are in our national interest, we are better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment. And it wouldn’t be in our interest now to give up.”
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