Zero reason not to work as partners
AS STATES members and the business community were being briefed yesterday on the consequences of zero-10 having been torpedoed by a combination of EU hostility and politically-inspired capitulation by the UK just when it should have been representing our interests, there was one clear positive emerging from the mess.
AS STATES members and the business community were being briefed yesterday on the consequences of zero-10 having been torpedoed by a combination of EU hostility and politically-inspired capitulation by the UK just when it should have been representing our interests, there was one clear positive emerging from the mess.
That is the determination of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man to work together to find a compliant alternative to zero-10 that allows them to keep a competitive rate of corporation tax.
That might not seem significant, but it was the three offshore islands trying to get the upper hand over one another that can now be seen to have been ultimately responsible for the plug being pulled on everyone.
It will be of scant comfort, particularly for those wanting to blame the chief minister (widely regarded when he was heading Treasury as architect of the strategy) for our woes, but Guernsey's version of zero-10 was seen as the most compliant of the three packages.
While the 'what next?' question will, of necessity, be slow to be answered, there are some pointers.
For the islands to retain their fiduciary and investment businesses, some form of opt-out or protection will be necessary and that may have to extend to the captive insurance business here as well.
How hard the UK represents those interests on behalf of the islands will be telling, but as a net beneficiary via the City of London of those sectors, there is more incentive in helping.
And a determination by Guernsey and Jersey truly to work together ought to help that process as scrutinising officials are spared having to examine different, competing cases.
Meaningful cooperation with Jersey and the IoM has received lip-service for far too long.
Cost cutting and - bluntly - survival means it really does not matter whether, say, a pan-island tax collection service is based here or there.
In reality, it is only the political classes who have been resistant to serious collaboration and merger and then for narrow reasons of self-interest. The zero-10 tax bombshell might finally be the impetus for the Channel Islands to come together in more than name only.
