LONDON (Reuters) – London’s loss of some financial business due to Brexit has not been catastrophic and the world’s premier international financial capital will thrive even if the European Union “irrationally” blocks access, the City of London said.
London, the only financial centre to rival New York, has seen some business and job losses since the shock result of the 2016 Brexit referendum and financial services were largely forgotten by British leaders during the divorce negotiations, cutting off the City from its biggest single customer.
“It’s disappointing to lose business but it’s not at all catastrophic,” Catherine McGuinness, who is the political leader of the ancient financial district’s ruling body, the City of London Corporation, told Reuters.
“We are very confident in London’s basic strengths and that we will make up business elsewhere,” McGuinness said. “No matter what happens, London will continue to thrive.”
The City, McGuinness said, neither wanted nor expected Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to light “a bonfire of regulations”. Still, a global financial capital the size of London could not be a “rule taker”, she said.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Huw Jones; editing by Kate Holton)
