It’s not a laughing matter! IG Group predicts 40 seat Tory majority, but some candidates just cannot help themselves

The, er, entertaining videos are at the end of this article… but first….

The British electorate takes to the polls in just two days time as a result of Prime Minister Theresa May’s calling for a snap General Election, and with the hard left socialist Labour party having gained tremendous ground over the recent few days, the impact on London’s financial technology, electronic trading and interbank powerhouse is yet to be determined.

Under a Conservative government, the pride of Britain, its world-renowned financial markets sector, which is hewn from granite and absolutely world leading right the way down from the eFX prime brokerage desks within Canary Wharf’s Tier 1 banks which handle 49% of all global FX order flow, to the institutional giants led by astute and highly experienced professionals that lead the world’s non-bank liquidity provision segment, to the 30 year established retail brokerages with their loyal client bases and unfaltering reliability has flourished.

The Labour party, however, sees it as a target, with anti-capitalist and hard line leftist Jeremy Corbyn having elected some shadow cabinet members who have vowed to pretty much wage war on London’s avantgarde and high producing financial sector.

Today, IG Group’s analysis predicts a Conservative seat spread of 353-359, which would show a 40 seat majority, despite the almost level results at the opinion polls, which last week were showing a Labour majority.

A Labour government would quite simply be a serious threat to the industry that we hold dear and whose dedicated leaders have worked tirelessly to continue to perfect.

Just three years ago, there was a substantial amount of discourse mounting in London with regard to the European Union’s predilection for the intrinsically socialist Tobin Tax on transactions that are placed in trading financial instruments.

That has now gone completely quiet, as Britain opposed it on principle and has managed to fend it off, however in 2013, eleven European Union member states, all of which were led by left-wing governments, announced their wish to move ahead with introducing a financial transactions tax.

At that time, the nations – which include France and Germany – intended to use the tax to help raise funds to tackle the debt crisis, and the tax had the backing of the European Commission which was reinforced after the 2014 election the highly unpopular Jean-Claude Juncker as President.

The other countries that wished to introduce it were Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia, all nations with absolutely no place in the world’s highly advanced financial markets economy. Greece’s government accountants, when not asleep for half of the day, cannot tell the top from the bottom of their balance sheets, Italy is rife with corruption, Portugal is agrarian, Belgium has invoked outright bans of retail electronic trading instruments and Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia have absolutely no Tier 1 bank presence.

Jeremy Corbyn’s policies echo this line of thinking.

The Tobin tax was originally proposed to target the FX market when it was orchestrated by James Tobin in the 1970s, and whilst Britain has managed to remain free from it’s burden until now, Jeremy Corbyn is a staunch advocate of implementing it.

In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor and equally leftist John McDonnell made a schedule to meet four times per year with a seven-strong group comprising of economic academics (rather than business leaders) one of which was Anastasia Nesvetailova, a self-designated ‘expert’ on the international financial sector and its role in the global financial crisis of 2007-09. Ms. Nesvietailova, is an academic who spends her day in the classroom rather than the boardroom, thus is a theorist and has no practical experience. Just the type of policy advisors favored by the left.

During one particular conversation, the Labor Party’s support for the implementation of the Tobin Tax on all trading transactions was raised, as was, rather alarmingly, the potential of a Britain free of dominance of the financial sector.

Bearing this in mind, it is worth looking at John McDonnell’s credentials and viewpoint.

Mr. McDonnell is a former trade unionist who backs renationalizing banks and imposing wealth taxes. He actually lists “generally fomenting the overthrow of capitalism” as one of his interests in the Who’s Who directory of influential people. He also advocates the complete public ownership of all banks.

Mr McDonnell has served as Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament and the Labour Representation Committee, and was the chair of the Public Services Not Private Profit Group. He is also Parliamentary Convenor of the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group of eight left-wing trade unions representing over half a million workers

The thought of Tier 1 FX desks being run by teams of ‘entitled’, unaccountable gray cardigan-wearing Caravan Club members with civil service pension plans should be enough to send the entire industry striking up prime brokerage relationships in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore.

Mr McDonnell has also said publicly that if he was able to, he would have assassinated Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, a comment that when challenged, he retracted and said it was “a joke”.

Well, Mr McDonnell, that kind of extreme anti-business mentality combined with a will to bring the entire financial markets sector to its knees in the rebellious quest for overthrowing capitalism is not welcome.

Mr McDonnell wrote in 2012 that a financial transaction tax would halt “the frenetic, madcap speculation in the City” and raise money for infrastructure investment.

“If the City resists then let’s make it clear that capital controls would follow,” he said in a piece for Labour Briefing, a left-wing website.

He has also said he wants to take the power to set interest rates away from the Bank of England and to give it back to government. This would reverse a decision by the Blair government to let the central bank decide monetary policy.

Just last month, I demonstrated how this ethos runs completely in line with Mr Corbyn’s admiration for economically illiterate Hugo Chavez, and the appalling disarray that he brought upon the once-wealthy country over which he presided, unchallenged, for years.

Capital controls would prevent the movement of commercial or private funds out of Britain whilst Mr Corbyn would set about plundering the industry which employs only 0.0009% of the entire European Union’s workforce yet produces 16% of the tax receipts.

The competitive edge and innovative nature of Britain’s brilliant FinTech geniuses and companies with their own home-grown trading systems would be replaced by unaccountable gray cardigan wearing public sector automatons.

It is absolutely vital to the future of London’s highly advanced, technologically cutting-edge and world respected electronic trading business that Britain avoids a win by Mr Corbyn, however whilst the City may well have some stoic and well organized Conservative advisers who are leaders of industry and have the absolute mettle and resolve to continue Britain’s path of success, the rural communities of the North see things somewhat differently….

A “Winner through and through is working for you” apparently…. Let’s hope a ‘bale’ out will not be needed (I know, I know..)

…and for a bit of “accountability with Conservative delivery”… Good grief.