Mark Carney used to work at Goldman Sachs, earning over $1 million a year. He’s been referred to as a “rock star banker.”
He’s was the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003, going on to become the governor in 2008.
He is widely credited for his role in steering Canada through the global financial crisis.
It was these credentials that led UK Chancellor George Osborne to appoint Carney as the governor of the Bank of England in 2013.
Carney made a few statements of fact recently regarding the UK’s EU membership.
If anyone should know what they’re talking about on the subject it’s Carney — or at least that’s how the balanced mind would see it. Just to be clear, I’m saying statements of fact, not his political view.
Carney told the Treasury Committee recently that an EU exit is “the biggest domestic risk to financial stability.”
He went on to say that firms in the City would “without question” cut back on business activity and that “in the shorter term the transition could bring some challenges to financial stability.”
However, Brexit is not a matter of facts or logic for many.
People like Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mr.Rees-Mogg was rather annoyed that Carney’s expert opinion didn’t suit his Pro Leave stance.
Rees-Mogg said Carney’s comments were “beneath the Bank’s dignity” and accused the Bank of being guilty of “political partisanship.”
Clearly not being a man who takes kindly to having sand kicked into the face of his integrity, Carney fired back saying that Rees-Mogg’s “selective memory” was concerning, and that his comments were “wholly unfounded.”
If anyone’s voice needs to be heard on the facts of a Brexit, it’s that of our Central Banker.
Carney is not some hollow career politician; he’s the expert that we have entrusted with the running of the Bank of England.
So we should all sit up and listen when he speaks, and that’s precisely the reason that the Pro Leave camp doesn’t want him to have a voice.
— Sukhvinder Gill has worked as a global business head and trader in Capital Markets for over 20 years.
Source: Arab News