Any possibility of securing Labour’s support for the next Parliamentary vote vanished into thin air over the weekend, as Theresa May rejected Corbyn’s customs union plan. While it would almost certainly have passed through the Commons, May believes it would have split the Conservatives which is evidently more important. Liz Truss confirmed she would have resigned.
The UK economy struggles on in the face of two years of uncertainty and absolutely no guarantees that a deal will be agreed with the EU. The prime minister seems intent on getting the EU to agree to something it has already rejected approximately 123,736 times, but you never know. It is an extremely busy start to the week for the UK, with the balance of trade figures from December up first. We will then see the latest GDP growth rate figures for the fourth quarter of 2018 which will give us a firm idea of how the economy fared towards the end of last year. Then we will see industrial and manufacturing production figures for December.
We could see some sterling weakness if the figures confirm what the markets are fearful of – that continued Brexit uncertainty is having a significant adverse effect on the UK economy.
