Should she stay or should she go?

The UK economy is having a tough time knowing where it stands. On the one hand, we have the slowest house price rises in over 6 years, the lowest shopper footfall since the recession and the manufacturing sector has stalled with car sales way down with unemployment up. On the other, we somehow have an increase in employment, due to students and more elderly entering the workforce along with immigration, with wages in the UK also rising at the fastest pace since 2008.

With many factors contributing in a tug of war between the multitude of positives and negatives, it wasn’t a major surprise to see the pound fairly stable against the euro yesterday, with a movement of only a third-cent. Average earnings were up to 3.3% for both including and excluding bonuses. With little else eco-stat wise, Brexit yet again reared it’s vulgar head, with the usual media whirl of more voting, not to mention the £100k the government paid Facebook for advertising May’s Brexit deal.

Discussions yesterday, of course, revolved around voting for no confidence in Theresa May, with Jeremy Corbyn at the front of the queue, backed by the cross-party People’s Vote campaign, which if successful could trigger a general election, although Corbyn was unlikely to press ahead with this unless he was certain to win. Some MPs continue to push for another referendum vote and EU leaders appear more than willing to help the UK sort the Irish border/backstop issue..probably because a no-deal Brexit would actually be worse for them than it would for the UK. May was in Brussels for talks with Tusk, Merkel and Juncker. A commons vote must be made on the deal before the 21st January 2019.

Today will doubtless see more Brexit drama, twists and turns, as Theresa May will indeed face a vote of no-confidence as the required 48 letters were surpassed. Voting will take place this evening between 18:00 and 20:00. The repercussions of this are the possibility of article 50 being delayed. With only inflation figures from the USA to otherwise keep our attention from the eco-stat front, UK politics will be at the forefront. We are currently two cents down on the euro since a week ago and further tumbles could well be on the cards. Do not delay, speak to us today.