The Bank of England has been accused of maintaining an “obsession” with Brexit as it emerged it is continually asking business leaders to rate the level of “uncertainty” the 2016 referendum result is causing their firms.
A monthly survey issued by the Bank to some 10,000 chief executives and chief financial officers, and used to formulate monetary policy, continues to ask how much “the result of the EU referendum” has affected “the level of uncertainty affecting your business”.
No equivalent questions have been asked about factors such as the war in Ukraine and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, since 2022.
One member of the Bank’s so-called Decision Maker Panel, which completes a survey each month, said: “There are many, many things that cause uncertainty – the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, Covid, and yet Brexit is an ongoing obsession, it seems, within the Bank of England.”
The businessman, who asked to remain anonymous, said there appears to be a “concerted, anti-Brexit Project Fear narrative, a campaign within the Bank of England”.
He added: “If you are a small business trying to think about new regulations, new taxes, things that will have a material impact on your future then an incoming Labour government is a genuine concern. If this Bank of England exercise was honest and objective it would be asking questions about that.”
