France in plot to ‘wreck’ UK
Entente cordiale? Don’t you believe it... as this memo leaked to MoS shows French ministers’ plot to destroy the City and weaken Britain at any cost
FRANCE has boasted to City of London chiefs that it will use Brexit to sabotage the British economy, according to a bombshell leaked memo.
The memo, sent to Ministers, says the French government and banking chiefs are plotting to ‘actively disrupt and destroy’ the UK’s multibillion-pound financial sector when Britain leaves the EU – even if France gains nothing.
The missive blames the ‘giddy’ effect of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron for an ‘assertive collective endeavour’ to wreck the City, which is worth £66billion a year to the Treasury in tax receipts.
The memo was written after the City of London’s Brexit envoy – former Home Office Minister Jeremy Browne – held talks in Paris earlier this month at the French finance ministry, state-owned Banque de France, the French Senate and the British Embassy. He met banking chiefs, senior politicians and diplomats.
His message to UK Treasury Ministers and MPs says Macron’s France has effectively declared open war on London’s Square Mile. And he warns starkly: ‘They are crystal clear about their underlying objective: the weakening of Britain, the on-going degradation of the City of London.’
He pointed to ‘French representatives crashing around London’ offering big sums to firms to move to Paris. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire was appointed by Mr Macron earlier this year after being lauded for saying Brexit provided a ‘fabulous opportunity for France’.
And the country’s banking bosses are just as belligerent, says Mr Browne. He writes: ‘The meeting with the French Central Bank was the worst I have had anywhere in the EU. They are in favour of the hardest Brexit. They want disruption. They actively seek disaggregation of financial services provision.’
Reinforcing his warning, Mr Browne says: ‘The clear messages emanating from Paris are not just the musings of a rogue senior offi- cial in the French government or central bank. France could not be clearer about their intentions. They see Britain and the City of London as adversaries, not partners.’
The memo suggests that other EU nations who wanted good relations with the UK over Brexit were alarmed by France’s hostile con– duct but were powerless – or unwilling – to stop them.
Mr Browne says: ‘There is plenty of anxiety elsewhere in the EU about the French throwing their weight around so aggressively, but their destructive impulses are not being confined, and other EU countries that want a friendly relationship with Britain and the City of London are being marginalised.’
The French were ‘commendably honest about their true intentions which makes the exchanges more meaningful.’
Mr Browne even hints they were acting out of spite, ‘making a virtue of rejecting a partnership with Britain and happy to see outcomes detrimental to the City – even if Paris is not the beneficiary’.
Make no mistake, he warns, France sees the UK and the City ‘as adversaries, not partners.’
It was much more serious than the wily French merely putting down a Brexit talks marker as ‘the opening shots in a long negotiating process,’ says Mr Browne.
French industry was barely more conciliatory than French finance and banking, and offered no ‘life raft’ for Britain. They were ‘by a big margin, much worse than the norm elsewhere in the EU’.
Observing that it was Wimbledon fortnight, Mr Browne says the Government must do more to combat the French threat by ‘putting some more balls back on the other side of the court’.
Diplomat’s son Mr Browne, 47, was a Lib Dem Minister in David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s Coalition, serving in the Foreign Office and Home Office. He campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU but was seen as a Lib Dem Eurosceptic and supported cutting the top rate of tax. It led to reports that he was considering defecting to the Conservatives. He became the City of London Corporation’s Brexit envoy on a six-figure salary after losing his Commons seat in 2015. The jet-setting job has taken him to 26 EU countries in 18 months to ‘make sure the City’s voice is heard’ before Brexit.
Financial experts say the City is particularly vulnerable to the disruptive effects of Brexit, with knock-on effects for the rest of the economy. Nearly 12 per cent of the UK’s tax revenues come from the financial services industry, which employs more than seven per cent of all UK workers.
It has been claimed the banking and financial services sector could lose tens of thousands of jobs as a result of Brexit.
‘They see the UK as adversaries not partners’
FRENCH ruthlessness is famous. So is their rivalry with us. In our long history we have seen plenty of these things. But it is one thing to read about this in the distant past and another to feel its keen edge in the present day.
Paris, it seems, is out to do us down in Brexit negotiations, even if it does not benefit France. Such vindictiveness is shocking and regrettable. But we need as a nation to think very carefully about how to respond.
The Mail on Sunday today reveals details of a report on Brexit so far, and France’s position on it, written by Jeremy Browne, special representative for the City of London to the EU.
Mr Browne was clearly shocked by what he found.
The French, he writes, are ‘seemingly happy to see outcomes that are detrimental to the interests of the City of London even if Paris is not the beneficiary’.
He describes a meeting with France’s central bank as ‘the worst I have had anywhere in the EU’.
In what may be the most significant words in the report, Mr Browne noted: ‘They are in favour of the hardest Brexit. They want disruption.’
France, he concludes, sees us as adversaries, not partners.
‘Their underlying objective: the weakening of Britain, the ongoing degradation of the City of London and the building up of the eurozone.’
Pointing out that the French can be ‘the cutest players in the EU’, he urges that we take them seriously, saying: ‘We should do the French the basic courtesy of believing them.’
Indeed we should. This is a timely warning, by an experienced foreign policy expert, of what diplomatic hardball is like. The French, who have never wholly accepted that they lost at Trafalgar or Waterloo, see a crisis, and mean to exploit it. Some might say that Britain needs to learn a similar ferocity in pursuing our self-interest.
Certainly it ought to be an alarm call to our own leaders and our own political class as a whole. In fact it is a warning to all of us. This really is no time for internal squabbling, factional spite or the seeking of petty advantage.
Our single most important source of wealth is threatened. We should be united in defending it.
It is a point we have sought to make ceaselessly since the referendum. Both sides need to listen to each other, and remember above all our common national interest. Now it is even more pressing that we should seek a sensible agreement among ourselves, so that – at the very least – we are not damaged by those beyond these shores who do not wish or work for our success.