Fishing for a direction on finance
THE minister for the Department for Exiting the EU works hard to cover all the bases in his open letter to the islands, published opposite.
The Crown Dependencies are very much part of the process, walking every step of the way with the UK government.
To that end, the Bailiwick’s concerns each get a namecheck: the government is committed to protecting The Common Travel Area; the islands are a part of transition; farming and fishing are prominent in the minister’s thoughts.
EU citizens also get a mention, with DexEu promising to provide clarity and reassurance to workers living in the Bailiwick.
And we are told the UK is aiming for frictionless trade with the EU thereby ensuring the islands’ ‘dynamic business environment’ can continue to go from strength to strength.
At this point, if Guernsey’s chief minister was playing Brexit bingo in his Sir Charles Frossard office he would be close to shouting ‘House!’.
The box that cannot be crossed off is an explicit reference to the island’s major industry, finance.
So while it is gambling in Alderney and tourism in Sark, the minister chooses to highlight Specsavers as Guernsey’s representative business.
Granted, Specsavers is a huge concern, which draws international recognition, but it is not part of the island’s finance sector, which directly provides a fifth of all our jobs (and indirectly far more).
By contrast, fishing and farming get a mention, yet together they employ just 1.3% of the workforce.
At the last briefing to the States in March, the vice president of Policy & Resources raised a concern about the direction for finance post-Brexit.
While the Chancellor of the Exchequer had laid out the UK’s vision for a special partnership on financial services with the EU it was not clear what that would mean.
‘Much remains to be understood,’ said Deputy Lyndon Trott, ‘in terms of the future partnership and how the EU will deal with market access and regulatory matters such as recognition and divergence.’
The absence of any reference to the special partnership and financial services indicates that this is one area of Brexit where the Crown Dependencies and UK still have much to discuss.