When working on my report on the future of the European single market, Much More Than a Market, I often found myself reflecting on how much easier it would be to complete the single market – a task that is both necessary and urgent – had the UK remained within the European Union. Britain’s commitment to the single market was always one of the most valuable and consistent contributions it made to Europe’s competitiveness.
Yet this is not only a question about the future, or simply about how much stronger an EU of 28 nations would be today. It is also about the costs of a decade of separation, and the opportunities that have been lost along the way.
One example stands out in particular. In 2014, after a proposal by Jonathan Hill, the last British European commissioner before the referendum, the European Commission launched the capital markets union project. The ambition was clear: to move beyond 28 fragmented national financial markets and create a truly integrated European capital market, with London at its centre.
Had Brexit not intervened, and had that vision been fully realised, the landscape in which we operate today would look profoundly different. Rather than a collection of fragmented British and continental financial markets, each struggling to compete with the overwhelming scale and influence of Wall Street, Europe could have developed a genuine single market for financial services.
In such a scenario, London would have remained Europe’s undisputed financial capital – representing not only the UK but the continent as a whole – and would have been able to compete on equal terms with the world’s leading financial centres, New York foremost among them.
A truly integrated European financial market would also have provided the scale of financing needed to support the big investments Europe must make in AI, technological innovation and the industries of the future.
Brexit brought that prospect to an end. It has been a loss for the UK and a loss for the EU alike. In the end, the principal beneficiaries have not been Europeans, but others beyond Europe.
Photograph by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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