The City "determined" to keep passporting rights says Lord Mountevans

Lord Mountevans, Lord Mayor of London and a kind of ambassador for the City, told reporters in Chicago that the financial sector was working hard behind the scenes to ensure London based organisations did not lose "passporting" arrangements into the EU (HERE).  These arrangement allow a company in one EU country to conduct business across the whole bloc.

This is what's known as whistling in the dark. The Governor of the Bank of France has already called for London to lose it's passporting rights,  "If tomorrow, Britain is not part of the internal market, the City cannot keep its European passport",  Villeroy de Galhau told a French radio station on Saturday.

Unfortunately, this is not in Lord Mountevans' gift.  We cannot vote to leave a club and then ask to remain on the treasury committee of it. This is typical of us, we have been told repeatedly over the years we can't cherry pick but we do and occasionally we get a cherry (The Euro, Schengen, etc) - but this is when we were a full member.

Lord Mountevans

British and US banks are anxious to keep the passport otherwise they lose the right to do business in the EU, the largest, richest market in the world.  But the French economy minister has said we will lose it and they are ready to roll out the red carpet for companies to move into the EU.  We will certainly lose the right to handle financial transactions in Euros and the EU banking regulator, based in London, will have to move.

Our compatriots will become or competitors.  We might be able to retain some access if we are in the single market like Norway but only if we accept freedom of movement and this will be a difficult binary choice in any future negotiations.