While the current Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, seems to be doing everything he can to thwart Brexit, a former Governor, Mervyn King, appears to sing from a different hymn sheet.
In contrast to his successor, Lord King supports Brexit, although he does not support the way in which Theresa May's government has approached the matter. In fact, he considers the approach to have been incompetent in the extreme. However, he does not reserve his criticism for the government alone and has not directed his remarks at one side of the argument only; he has lambasted both the 'Leave' and 'Remain' camps.
Lord King finds it incomprehensible that the government had not made a possible 'no-deal' scenario a cornerstone of its approach from the beginning and says that to not do so has undermined its whole negotiating strategy. He says that it "beggared belief" that the world's sixth largest economy should now be talking about stockpiling food and medicines in the event that there is no deal.
That the 27 countries of the European Union seem to have been united in their negotiating stance while the 1 country of the United Kingdom has been unable to agree on an approach has also caused Lord King serious concern. He finds the current level of debate depressing, with both sides of the argument doing little more than throw insults at each other while ignoring the real issues which affect the nation. In Lord King's view, Brexit is almost the least of our worries; he cites a failure to save for retirement and pensions, social care and the NHS as being of much greater significance, but these matters have been side-lined by an all-consuming row about Brexit.
Because of the lack of a united front or a proper negotiating strategy, Lord King believes that the UK will end up with 'Brexit in name only, a situation in which we leave the EU but remain wholly subservient to it; this he describes, quite rightly in my view, as the worst of all world. He also feels that such an outcome would lead to many more years of debate and conflict as the 2 opposing camps of Remainers and Brexiteers continue to row amongst themselves.
Lord King's remarks are equally critical of all concerned in this mess. It's a bit of a shame that he's not still the Governor of the Bank of England as, if he was, perhaps things would have been different.
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