Well as someone who has been in financial services for 35 years your suggestion that the Uk is not tough on AML is bollox.
Money coming in from abroad is called trade. A very small %might be illegal but for you to suggest otherwise is incorrect.
The amount of paperwork required for any regulated or indeed bank transfer/investment nowadays is ridiculous......everything is checked and double checked. To the point it’s farcical.
and yet the UK has consistently opposed anti tax avoidance and AML directives coming from the EU. Why would that be?
I think today is a time for Unicorn killing. Let’s take the one that’s always placed as the most important, the “taking back control” Unicorn.
The premise of this is that the UK takes rules from the EU, is subject to the ECJ, and that Brexit will stop this being the case.
Let’s look beyond Brexit and look at future trade deals. If we want to deal then we need to have agreed standards for goods between us and a new partner. We won’t accept their standards blindly and they won’t take ours. Ours will have to be at least as good as there’s. If we trade and goods from us are found deficient that won’t be heard in our courts but in theirs.
This doesn’t just apply to goods either. Human rights of workers enters into it. You can’t exploit your workforce and expect it to be allowed as it places the other party’s companies at a disadvantage.
So in a deal with the EU we would have to meet their standards. Defined by the commission and upheld by the ECJ.
Hang on a minute. How is this different than now, except we won’t have a say in setting the rules?
My objections to Brexit, unlike yours to the EU, aren’t ideological. They are practical. It makes no sense. None of the promises can actually be delivered on unless we are going to seal ourselves off from the world. What is the point of removing ourselves from the process of setting rules when they’ll still apply to our dealings with the EU?