Day: January 22, 2018

    Financial markets in Britain and the European Union will face instability and significant business disruption if the U.K. exits the EU in March 2019 without a transition deal or final settlement on a number of crucial issues, a finance industry trade group warned. There are at least five key areas where financial firms need clarity from U.K. and EU policymakers to avoid instability, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe said in a report published Monday. These include an agreement on data transfers, continuity of contracts, legal jurisdiction, access to market infrastructure and recognition of bank resolution actions, according to AFME. A quarter of all over-the-counter derivative contracts entered into by parties in both the U.K. and EU with a gross notio...

    Pressure was today mounting on Ukip leader Henry Bolton to step down following a flurry of resignations from his frontbench team. The party’s assistant deputy leader Mike Hookem MEP, local government spokesman Tim Aker and education spokesman David Kurten announced they had quit their posts just before lunchtime, bringing the number of senior departures today to six. Deputy leader Margot Parker, immigration spokesman John Bickley and international trade spokesperson William Dartmouth have all also quit their posts, demanding Mr Bolton resigns. Mr Bolton has refused to step aside. At an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) next month members will vote whether he should stay on. Mr Hookem said he had resigned on Friday as the situation had become an “almost farcical ...

Margaret Thatcher believed South Africa should be a whites-only state, it has been reported. The former head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Patrick Wright, has made a number of explosive claims in his account of the former Prime Minister’s time in office. Sir Patrick also said that Ms Thatcher loathed Germans and wanted to push Vietnamese boat people into the sea. Extracts from his diaries have been published in the Mail on Sunday and include claims that Ms Thatcher expressed a desire for a pre-1910 South Africa. In the diary entry, Sir Patrick writes the conversation took place over a lunch he was invited to with Ms Thatcher. “She opened the conversation by thrusting a newspaper cutting about Oliver Tambo [ANC president] in front of us, saying that it proved that we should not b...