LONDON (Reuters) – The Bank of England (BOE) has stepped up its monitoring of Lloyd’s of London’s SOLYD.UL whistleblowing systems, the central bank said on Monday///CRIMSON TAZVINZWA–
The Prudential Regulation Authority said the insurance market had agreed to additional requirements relating to whistleblowing after informing the regulator that its processes had been ineffective.
The PRA is the United Kingdom’s prudential regulator for deposit-takers (banks, building societies and credit unions), insurers and designated investment firms.2 It derives its responsibilities and its powers from the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) 2000 (as amended by the Financial Services Act 2012 and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013) (the Act), and the relevant EU Directives and directly effective regulations for which it is a competent authority.
The time for tinkering around the edges is over – MPs should vote for revocation in the autumn, followed by a referendum//By JONATHAN LIS
Arun on the pound was once the kind of event that troubled a prime minister. If it was shown to be the direct result of a policy the prime minister refused to change, it might even have unseated them. No longer. Now a Conservative government’s central policy will not just crash the pound, but also end Britain’s manufacturing and agriculture overnight and block half the country’s transportation of food and medicines – and it shows no shame whatsoever.
Extraordinary and radical times demand a similar response. It may no longer be sufficient for parliament to tinker around the edges with Brexit. Because the no-deal trajectory is both real and unthinkable, politicians may finally decide it is time to challenge key orthodoxies. Brexit, in its current form, is not the will of the people – and it can be stopped. The outright revocation of article 50 is looking more likely, and more justified, than ever.
Revocation has, understandably, been considered Brexit’s nuclear button. Remainers in parliament have been unwilling to vote for it or even discuss it. But it may prove the only way to stop the catastrophe of no deal.
OK. Time to get real. Force an extension? Johnson might ignore it or refuse to accept what EU offers. Vote of no confidence? Johnson will hang on and play silly beggars. Radical times demand a radical response. It’s time for MPs to revoke.
If it is clear at the start of September that Boris Johnson won’t budge on his impossible negotiation demands, and that the EU won’t negotiate, we will be rapidly heading for no deal. MPs will then have three realistic options. The first is to enact new legislation forcing Johnson to request a new extension to the process. He has insisted that he will not do so, and the government will do all it can to hinder such legislation. A man who is showing himself uniquely contemptuous of parliament may also refuse to obey it. Even if he does, he will go to Brussels and report that he is being forced to seek an extension that the British government does not support. How is the EU supposed to respond in those circumstances? And if it does grant the extension, how can parliament ensure that Johnson accepts it?
MPs could also bring a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. Johnson has, once again, signalled that he is indifferent to such an expression of parliamentary sovereignty. His chief of staff Dominic Cummings has indicated that, in any case, the prime minister would not resign, and could call an election for after 31 October – effectively neutering any opposition to no deal. A court case would almost certainly follow, but the process would be messy and chaotic.
OK, everyone. I think it’s time I told my Boris Johnson story. It’s a story about the time as foreign secretary where Johnson committed a straightforward resigning offence, got caught out, then got away with it …Jonathan Lis @jonlis1
And so the only guaranteed way to stop no deal is to stop Brexit itself. Faced with an unprecedented national emergency, MPs could pass an act of parliament revoking article 50. This would satisfy our “constitutional requirements” specified by the European court when it granted the UK the unilateral right to revoke. It could also be done without government support, as with Yvette Cooper’s bill in April to force an extension. That passed in three days, while this bill would have more than six weeks.
For Tories, in particular, this would carry the advantage of not directly forcing them to bring down their own government. Moderate Conservatives did not sign up to Brexit at any cost and owe Johnson no personal loyalty, while leave-sympathetic Labour MPs such as Lisa Nandy have signalled they would also back such a move. Even if there was no time to clear the bill before 31 October, the EU might take note of the clearly expressed will of parliament to remain.
‘No-deal is the all-or-nothing corruption of a democratic vote, and revocation is its democratic answer.’ A pro-EU campaigner outside the Cabinet Office in London.
The Britain of 2019 is unrecognisable from the country of four years ago. A Brexit that in 2015 meant a Norway-style single market has come to entail our total rupture with every EU instrument, body and law, at any political, economic and human cost. Since the referendum, the Brexiters have refused all compromise. The hardline fringes have hijacked a slim mandate and reinterpreted it in the most extreme way available to them. No deal is the all-or-nothing corruption of a democratic vote, and revocation is its democratic answer. Like every other outcome, it will provoke a sustained political crisis. But in the end it may be the only way to save the economy – and people’s lives.
• Jonathan Lis is deputy director of the thinktank British Influence
An activist holds a sign at a demonstration March 12 outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain. File Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI | License Photo
Bank of England cuts forecast in 1st warning of no-deal EU exit//AIWA! NO!
The threat of Britain leaving the European Union this fall without a detailed agreement with the 28-member bloc led the Bank of England Thursday to cut its growth forecast for the next two years.The British central bank said in its revised outlook it expects the British economy to grow by 1.3 percent this year — down from a 1.5 percent expansion it projected in May. Thursday’s update also forecast 1.3 percent growth in 2020, a reduction of 0.3 percent from its initial calculation.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says U.K. households are “acting prudently.”
The bank’s forecast downgrade follows Boris Johnson‘s taking over as prime minister for Theresa May, whose departure was directly related to the absence of a Brexit agreement. Johnson has vowed to leave the EU on Oct. 31, with or without a deal.
The bank’s new outlook assumes London will leave with an agreement in place, but for the first time it warned of potential consequences of a no-deal, or “hard,” exit.
“In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the sterling exchange rate would probably fall, [consumer] inflation rise and [economic] growth slow,” the Bank of England said.
“Financial market participants’ expectations that the economy would be weaker in the event of a no-deal Brexit also mean that the sterling exchange rate tends to depreciate as the probability of a no-deal Brexit rises.”
“If Brexit proceeds smoothly to some form of deal, asset prices would adjust: the market path for interest rates would be likely to rise, the sterling exchange rate to appreciate, U.K.-focused equity prices to rise, and credit spreads would be likely to fall,” it added. “It is not possible to estimate precisely how asset prices would change in the event of a smooth Brexit. However, information from surveys, as well as observing how asset prices have moved as no-deal betting odds have changed.”
Britain has 240,000 businesses that trade exclusively with the EU and are not ready for border inspections that would follow a no-deal exit. Some wouldn’t have the required documents to sell to EU nations without a new agreement.
The Bank of England’s outlook cited a “material and broad-based slowdown” in world growth since the end of 2017 and said the risk of a recession is now at its highest point in three years, since Britons voted in mid-2016 to leave the alliance.
The bank voted Thursday to leave interest rates unchanged at 0.75 percent, despite continued influence of the trade conflict between the United States and China. It said a “smooth” EU exit, with a trade deal, would probably lead to interest rate hikes “at a gradual pace and to a limited extent” to return inflation to 2 percent, which is the level widely considered reflective of a healthy economy.
World leaders decry Trump’s attacks on congresswomen of color//CRIMSON TAZVINZWA
World leaders condemn, distance themselves from the US president’s racist attacks; asserting ‘they stand with the 4 women aka (The Squad) ‘ – as new poll reveals that the majority of Americans disagree with Trump’s ‘go home’ comment.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday criticized President Donald Trump’s “go back” tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color, saying that the president’s tweets contradict “the strength of America.”
“People of very different nationalities have contributed to the strength of the American people, so these are … comments that very much run counter to this firm impression that I have,” Merkel said during an annual news conference in Berlin. “This is something that contradicts the strength of America.”
“I distance myself firmly from this and feel solidarity with the women who were attacked,” she continued.
Merkel is the second western leader in a day to speak out about the controversy sparked by Trump’s remarks this week. On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the “send her back” chants that broke out at a Trump rally “completely unacceptable.”
Donald Trump was condemned for his attacks on four U.S. congresswomen of color, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, by many prominent leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
“The Boxer took defense action against the drone which had closed into a very close distance, approximately a thousand yards, ignoring multiple calls to stand down and was threatening the safety of the ship and the ship’s crew,” Trump said on Thursday. “The drone was immediately destroyed.”
