Osborne ran into criticism during the referendum campaign for warning of recession and the potential for an emergency budget in the event of a Brexit vote and May appeared to also fault him for not delivering enough “deep economic reform”.
Advertisement
“I think Article 50 should be triggered when we’re ready”.
Sterling rose along with United Kingdom government bond yields on Tuesday as the early anointing of interior minister Theresa May as prime minister fed into a generally improved global mood among financial investors.
“It is essential for both political and economic reasons that we continue calling for a clarification”, he said, referring to the EU’s repeated calls for the British government to invoke article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty as soon as possible, thus triggering the beginning of exit negotiations.
They saw euro zone growth slowing to 0.3 per cent in the final three months of the year from 0.4 per cent in the third quarter, while the outlook for the medium term depended on how fast European Union leaders struck a deal with Britain. Just separating Britain from the European Union bureaucracy will require a whole new bureaucracy to be established to manage the process.
“We already expected the exceptional tailwinds that have been supporting the euro area economy to weaken”.
Most economists expect the Bank of England to look to stimulate the British economy at this week’s policy meeting.
Following rival Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal from the race on Monday, May was left as the only candidate to be leader and will take over on Wednesday. Most importantly, they want to know whether Britain will have the same sort of access to the EU’s single market.
A high level source said to me on Monday evening: “We will react to Theresa May when she actually does something”.
She has served for the past six years as interior minister, regarded as one of the toughest jobs in government, and cultivated a reputation as a tough and competent pragmatist.
“Brexit has brought to the fore the main obstacle to sustainable growth in the euro zone: a definitive clean-up of Italian banks’ balance sheet”, said Frederik Ducrozet, an economist at wealth management firm Pictet in Geneva.
May said that as prime minister she would overhaul corporate governance, crack down on tax evasion and avoidance, and boost productivity. How well her personality and policies work for the country remains to be seen.
She promised to prioritise more house-building, a crackdown on tax evasion by individuals and companies, lower energy costs and a narrowing of the “unhealthy” gap between the pay of corporate bosses and their employees. “She’s strong, she’s competent, she’s more than able to provide the leadership our country will need in the years ahead”.
Advertisement
An online petition against the new charges said the fee hike “discriminated against low-earners” and Britain would lose thousands of skilled workers as a result.
