"There will be many firms relocating to EU companies. Contingency arrangements are already in place and will just need to be invoked."
Rubbish. Nobody knows what shape Brexit will take yet.
Here's for instance JP Morgan's statement:
"J.P. Morgan has 16,000 employees in the U.K. We are extremely proud of the work they do and our long history in the country. Regardless of today's outcome, we will maintain a large presence in London, Bournemouth and Scotland, serving local clients as we have for more than 150 years.
The framework of the U.K.'s engagement with the EU, including trade agreements, will be negotiated over a period of years. For the moment, we will continue to serve our clients as usual, and our operating model in the U.K. remains the same.
In the months ahead, however, we may need to make changes to our European legal entity structure and the location of some roles. While these changes are not certain, we have to be prepared to comply with new laws as we serve our clients around the world. We will always do our best to take care of our people and do the right thing during times of change.
We recognize the potential for market volatility over the next few weeks and we are ready to help our clients work through it. As of today, there are no changes to the structure of our clients' relationships with JPMorgan Chase or their ability to work with our firm, but again this may change in the coming months or years. "
They don't know what is happening yet. Nobody's saying that banks will not relocate. They do this all the time. After 2008 hundreds of thousands of financial services jobs were cut from UK banks.
These jobs are very mobile (easy to cut, and to relocate), and the firms are structured like this to allow themselves to expand in good markets and then shrink when the markets go bad.
"The poorest will - yet again - bear the brunt."
You what? We are talking about banking and law jobs potentially being moved elsewhere. These are not roles done by the poorest, in fact they are the very richest in society.
"There will be little to replace the lost revenue from financial services, as we don't actually make or do much else in this country. "
Absolute garbage. The financial and insurance sector contributes 8.0% of the UK's economy. And 3.4% of its jobs.
That's lower than manufacturing (9.7% of the economy, and 8% of the jobs).
"Most items will be significantly more expensive due to the weak pound and less favourable trading terms. "
Absolute bollocks. Why the need to lie? Our major import partners are:
- Germany - which uses the euro, against which the pound is considerably stronger now than much of the recent past. Our main import from them is cars. This our largest import category, and Germany is the number one source, although we also import cars from other EU countries. The Germans are NOT going to damage their car industry by imposing tariffs on us.
- China - they are not an EU member.
And the idea that there are all these huge tariffs just waiting to be imposed is a fantasy in any case. It's 2016. We have global free trade to a large degree. Our clothes are made in Bangladesh, and already imported to the UK under relationships that won't change. Our food is grown across the globe.
"So no, there is no over-reaction. People are right to be scared. This is real."
Yes, yes there is. We don't even know what relationship we will have with the EU in the future yet. Until there is at least some idea on that it's ridiculous to speculate in this fashion.