REVISED figures from Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) ‘Blue Book’, which measures economic activity in the UK, show that Britain’s global investments have collapsed by £490 billion.
Mark Capleton, UK rates strategist at Bank of America, commented: ‘Half a trillion pounds has gone missing.’ Britain has gone from a £469bn surplus to a £22bn net deficit.
Foreign direct investment has gone has fallen from a £120bn surplus in the first half of 2016 to a £25bn investment over the same period in 2017. This is equivalent to 25 per cent of GDP.
The collapse comes as the UK enters a critical stage in separation talks with the European Union, and effectively wipes out the country’s safety margin to deal with any economic damage caused by Brexit. The Bank of New York Mellon, one of the world’s largest wealth management firms, says its own data shows fewer big investors such as pension funds are putting their money into sterling assets.
Simon Derrick, the bank’s currency strategist, said: ‘The outflows from the UK began in mid-August.
‘The big buyers are disappearing.’ The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says the revisions came after it was discovered that Britons own fewer overseas shares than previously thought, and foreigners own more British assets.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has been engaging in ‘war games’ as to how a Labour government would deal with a massive run on the pound. Now that big business is crashing the UK economy to teach the working class a lesson, and reverse the 2016 referendum result through an economic terror, he will not have too long to wait for the real thing.
Workers still suffering from the results of the 2007 crash will not hesitate to demand and carry out the expropriation of the bosses and the bankers as the only way to deal with the capitalist crisis that they are unleashing.
