London, once the indisputable financial capital of Europe, and even of the world, is now losing to its European rivals that boast a far bigger market.
Paris, not even on the map just a few years ago, has closed a more than $1 trillion gap with the London stock exchange since 2016, putting some numbers to the now glittery skyline that surrounds their own triumph arc.
The combined value of British shares is now around $2.821 trillion, while France’s are worth around $2.823 trillion, Bloomberg calculates.
So reports all media, with this being the first time the French overtake the British since 2003.
Not to worry, some Brits say. The French have done it before, we’ll overtake them again. Except the City might never quite be the same.
Amsterdam ended 2021 as Europe’s top share trading venue, holding its lead over London.
Average daily trading in Amsterdam in December 2021 totalled 8.97 billion euros ($10.15 billion), ahead of London’s 8.32 billion euros.
It used to be $15 billion for London, followed by a very distant second for Frankfurt at $5 billion. Now, in some markets London is just a province.
That applies in this space too. Major crypto companies didn’t have much to think about when obviously choosing London in and before 2016. Since then, those that did, have left and the new ones, like Crypto.com, obviously chose Paris.
What Went So Wrong?
It is London this space looked to back in 2014 to act as a proxy in the then crypto ‘war’ against New York’s proposed BitLicense.
And the Brits obliged. The chancellor, George Osborn, even bought a bitcoin. And just like that, the City was suddenly changing.
Ravaged by the 2008 banking collapse, this space pushed for new finance and with it new optimism.
The fine British civil service at the Treasury not only grabbed the opportunity, but run with it. They even gave us a nice new term: FinTech.
All was set for a great bounce back as London took the crown of the financial capital of the world. The Brits way was the way, and we were all going to pioneer it together.
But Nigel Farage had different plans. A bitter Britain, whinny, rowdy, confrontational; against friendship, against neighbors, against commerce, and only for nationalism.
Global Britain, he said, and yet somehow Europe was never part of that specific globe. Who was exactly part remains unanswered six years on, but that they actually had no plan, nor any executable vision, is no longer unanswered.
Gains on Losses
Britain was in some ways taken off the ‘map’ on the very day the referendum results were announced when some allege that same Farage may have well aided in hedge funds shorting the pound.
Cameron was out and… so too was crypto, FinTech, commerce. ‘F business,’ the new thugs said. Up with what, they have not quite clarified even now years on.
While Theresa May was busy with cold-ing everything, Paris became the new crypto champion.
The still ruling French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, became the new Osborne. It is in effect, now looking back, as if that 2016 London had been transported just an hour’s train down on that very day the referendum results were announced, and so too it is like the headlines in these pages had just scrapped London and put Paris in it.
And the result was the same, Paris was rewarded, now with the European crown. The British civil service, at the same time, had become French.
Ugly Britain
Oblivious however the United Kingdom still seems to remain of the very different world in this 2022 than 2016.
You might even wonder in fact whether politically UK is still in that 2016, still campaigning on this mythical Brexit, with some still on edge of any signs that anyone might dilute the purest of pure fairytale, which has now become a very ugly one instead.
We are “serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast,” Suella Braverman, the new Home Secretary, told Parliament.
More astonishing is that this statement went without much commentary. There was no accusation of racism against Braverman by the British media. Neither on the left nor on the right did anyone accuse Braverman of gestapo rhetoric. There was instead only polite and almost muted criticism, leaving it to the Albanians themself after Braverman said:
“If Labour were in charge they would be allowing all the Albanian criminals to come to this country.”
The silence on the part of the British media is less complicity and more a silent acknowledgment that hate, even at the heights of power, is no longer quite new but more just another day in politics.
Hate is normal, in nationalist Britain. Hate of the French, hate of Europe, hate of Albanians, and hate of everyone else because that’s nationalism by definition, Britons are superio.
Except those same Albanians did actually invade when they came with the Romans and built some of the foundations of current Britain.
Now, plenty of them may be leaving instead. Especially those in the digital economy, who can be afforded global wages not just in London, but anywhere, including where there is sun and beaches.
The arrogance therefore has a cost, and although it can’t easily be measured, it shows up in statistics like stock markets and the digital economy.
Liberalism, When?
This cost will only increase for the United Kingdom if it does not close that 2016 chapter, for no nation or peoples should take anything for granted, nor delude themselves as superior.
London was a center out of design for decades. Now it has lost its biggest market by far, and the EU is unwilling to give it any preferential treatment because why should they.
The EU instead is moving onshore whatever else of their finance is left in London. The capital has been unable to anywhere near replace that.
The British public is not very happy with the way Brexit was handled. The vote was too close for a complete cut-off of Europe. The British negotiators were too rigid, too deluded in their ‘superiority,’ and in the end too incompetent to reach any sort of beneficial deal for UK.
Even mutual recognition of university diplomas has not been secured.
This is in effect a complete disaster, and whether you’re a leave or remainer is completely irrelevant to the fact it was handled so atrociously to the point UK has put a virtual wall to the world’s biggest single market.
Trade is what made Britain and liberalism, which it itself invented. Not some superiority and certainly not nationalists.
The public knows as much. Labour has been busy putting together the whole package for this decade, and that of course includes a far closer relationship to Europe and at the very least not a confrontational one.
Yet the United Kingdom is held hostage by second generation immigrants who think the best way to deal with the many challenges is to just blame first generation immigrants for an invasion.
Worse, the unelected Rishi Sunak wants to make UK even less competitive by increasing taxes on the entire working population in a tearing up of the conservative manifesto.
This risks revenge at the polls, a wipeout of the scale Labour saw in 2019 and maybe even worse because the current leadership team of the conservative party is clearly unelectable as if they were, they’d face the judgment of the public.
That same public is now giving them strikes, which may well get worse as the C or even D team is now in charge with the conservative A team long a memory.
Which is to say, Britain hold on. These thugs will be leaving soon. Then hopefully we’ll get back our party with crypto, liberalism, internationalism, and most of all, actual global commerce.