How the City of London’s Brexit lobbying barrage failed

The sector recognised how much it stood to lose if it did not keep its connections with the EU but the travelling caravan ruffled more than a few feathers. “There are lots of stories of arrogance . . . about the UK going round European capitals and saying ‘you need us’. That got people’s backs up,” said Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. Another person who was involved in the lobbying effort acknowledged: “We weren’t very clever about that.” One year on, the trips across the Channel continue, but the tone has changed. Negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU still have not started in earnest. Yet with few exceptions, no one expects the City to achieve anything like the ambitious partnership it was hoping for. “One of the UK’s only globally competitive sectors is being thrown under a bus,” Conservative MP and former minister Jo Johnson has warned.