The City is losing its battle with Brussels and Amsterdam

No sign of progress towards a workable deal with the EU for financial services, on which news is due next month. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned in unusually frank terms this week that although the UK has granted ‘equivalence’ to the EU in some financial activities, ‘the EU has not so far done likewise to the UK’ and seems unwilling to do so by reference to a ‘common framework of global standards’. Instead, Brussels is seeking to apply to the UK ‘a standard that the EU holds no other country to’, amounting to ‘rule-taking pure and simple’. Given the importance of financial services to the UK economy, that’s a major defeat of the Brexit principle which seems to be passing almost unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam last month overtook London as Europe’s largest share-trading centre with average daily trades of €9.2 billion, up from €2.6 billion in December, while London’s volume halved to €8.6