Last night, the government-backed amendment, tabled by the senior Conservative Graham Brady, was narrowly passed in the Commons. Ultimately, this means that Theresa May now has two weeks to renegotiate the Irish backstop issue with Brussels. However, EU leaders have said that the Irish backstop is a fundamental part of the withdrawal agreement that has already been negotiated and that no renegotiation of that is possible. We could be in for a bumpy few days.
There were no economic data releases from the UK yesterday, but sterling had performed relatively well throughout the day. Following the results of the vote, the pound promptly fell against the dollar as investors became a little nervy about the prospects of a no-deal Brexit. It is clear that of all the possible outcomes, this is the one least preferred by the City.
In addition to continued reaction to last night’s events, today we will see mortgage lending and approvals readings for December. We will also see the Bank of England’s consumer credit figures for last month. Tomorrow, the Gfk consumer confidence reading for January is on the schedule, as well as the latest Nationwide housing prices figures.
