Goldman Sachs' ex-head of market strategy says this is how Brexit will go now
Do you remember Bobby Vedral? He's the ex-Goldman Sachs partner and former GS global head of market strategy who left the firm in October 2018. Vedral is known for his prescience: he successfully forecast the Brexit vote in the 2016 referendum and he has long been forecasting that the UK will have an election in October. He currently runs his own fund, Macro Eagle, and issues regular newsletters on the issues of the day.
Vedral's latest newsletter comes with a timely prediction for Brexit. For anyone working in London and wondering how the chaos in the UK will evolve, we've added Vedral's prediction, in full below. Presumably this means the UK will be immediately propelled into a position of equivalence with regards to financial services, although this may not be sufficient to prevent banks from moving essential jobs to Europe on 1 November.
"What Team Boris is doing is quite obvious and for those who know their battle-strategy, it is called Bewegungskrieg (war of movement): move fast, do the unexpected (i.e. prorogation, threat of deselection, threat of early election), keep opposition confused and have them move towards the direction you want them to move – which in my opinion is an early election. Last month I guessed it would be Oct 10th …. Boris yesterday said Oct 14th … fine, I got it wrong by 4 days (still, better than most). The key point is that all this is NOT aimed at Brussels (the G7 meeting went well, and they believe him) but at the Brexit Party voters. So I expect the (unorganized) Rebel Forces today to ask for an emergency debate against a No-Deal and Art 50 extension, which Speaker Bercow will allow (breaking convention), then get the bill through on Wednesday to get it through the Lords between Thursday and the Weekend to gain Royal Ascent by Sunday. The big question then is if Boris will get enough Labour support (he needs ¾ of MPs to agree) to call for an election, but I think Corbyn is keen and will have a go. Then, with the Brexit Party vote moving towards the Conservatives and the Remain vote split between Labour and LibDems, my current guess would be a Tory landslide of 50+ seats, which in my opinion would then be followed by No-Deal Brexit, although a ‘managed’ one. After all, the UK is of this moment 100% compliant with EU regulation and hence agreeing on ‘temporary recognition’ is a political decision, not a technical one. Not my preferred choice, but that’s not the question..."
Basically, Boris will win the coming election and then agree to maintain total compliance with EU regulation in a no deal Brexit. "Temporary equivalence is the key word," says Vedral. " - Obviously only for as long as it suits the EU. The point is that this is not going to be some cliff edge event with the UK suddenly treated like Kazakhstan."
Notably, Vedral, who is German but lives in the UK, is also known for being the Goldman partner who said: “If we have Corbyn, we have Cuba without the sun.”
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