24 September 2020
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Jersey's External Relations Minister has admitted that the island may see its own deal with the European Union if it feels that the arrangements at the end of the Brexit negotiating period are unsatisfactory.
"Really, for Jersey, there's three options remaining - a thin deal that we say we want to be part of, the UK not negotiating any deal so there's nothing to be part of, or a thin deal that we decide it's not in our interests to be a part of," Senator Ian Gorst said.
Boris Johnson has admitted the UK is currently heading for a no-deal Brexit, with an agreement now "very difficult" as the two sides dig in and refuse to compromise.
Please, dear friends in London, stop the games. Time is running out"
No 10 described a deal as only "still possible" - with a strong attack on the EU's failure to give ground.
"An agreement is still possible and this is still our goal, but it is clear it will not be easy to achieve," the prime minister's spokesperson said.
If the UK signed a deal with the EU which was ‘not of benefit' to Jersey, then the Island would seek to have its own conversations with Brussels, the Senator said.
"In this case it might mean that we'd have to change some of our domestic legislation, for example to have a goods-for-goods deal," Senator Ian Gorst said in an interview with the Jersey Evening Post.
‘We might just say, "You know what, this deal is too much for us - we want to maintain our current approach".
Negotiating directly with the EU would require agreement from the UK in the form of an ‘entrustment' to allow the Island to sign its own international treaty.
Although UK government sources are playing down the idea of the UK walking away without a breakthrough, they agree a deal must be struck by the European Council summit in mid-October.
The economic cost of a no-deal Brexit could be two or three times as bad as the impact of Covid, a report has concluded.
Analysis by the London School of Economics and UK in a Changing Europe says "a no-deal Brexit would represent a further major shock to a UK economy" with a "major set of changes" to the economic relationship with the country's largest trading partner.
"Our modelling with LSE of the impact of a no-deal Brexit suggests that the total cost to the UK economy over the longer term will be two to three times as large as that implied by the Bank of England's forecast for the impact of Covid-19," the report said.
JP Morgan Chase & Co is reportedly set to move €200bn (£184bn) assets from the UK to Germany as a result of Brexit.
The US banking giant plans to finish the migration of the assets to a Frankfurt-based subsidiary by the end of this year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The shift would make JP Morgan Germany's sixth largest lender, based on reported assets of the country's largest banks last year.
Germany's minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, said: "Please, dear friends in London, stop the games. Time is running out."
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