"Brexit Disaster capitalism" claims debunked
Most people who have been paying any attention to who takes what positions on Brexit are aware that the great majority of large businesses, most very rich people, and most of the City of London were firmly in the Remain corner in 2016.
(That is not necessarily quite as true today, in that plenty of them accept the referendum result. Indeed, many rich people and businesses are now as fed up as much of the rest of Britain with interminable delays and postponements to Brexit and the harm done to business by uncertainty and delay and now, as I quoted from a "City AM" article yesterday, want to get on with it.
But it was true at the time.)
When Jeremy Corbyn and the left suggested that Boris Johnson was promoting Brexit to help "his rich friends" the vast majority of well-informed people thought "What planet are you on?"
For those, however, who are desperate to believe this narrative, a study by a niche online website called "Byline" came as manna from heaven. An article in the "Byline Times" which suggested that there was a major increase in the number of “short” positions taken by UK hedge funds when Boris Johnson ran for Conservative leader was shared tens of thousands of times on social media.
The basic idea is that hedge funds who were also donors to Vote Leave and Boris Johnson's leadership campaign would also profit by a "No Deal" Brexit by investing £8 billion in a bet on a it happening and causing a drop in share prices.
There is one slight problem with their analysis: if you look at the data correctly including both "short" positions which were still active at the time they did the analysis and those which were not, then it appears to Full Fact and a number of other people who have checked it that the supposed "spike" in short positions never happened.
The Byline claim is debunked at the Full Fact website here and in City AM here.
(That is not necessarily quite as true today, in that plenty of them accept the referendum result. Indeed, many rich people and businesses are now as fed up as much of the rest of Britain with interminable delays and postponements to Brexit and the harm done to business by uncertainty and delay and now, as I quoted from a "City AM" article yesterday, want to get on with it.
But it was true at the time.)
When Jeremy Corbyn and the left suggested that Boris Johnson was promoting Brexit to help "his rich friends" the vast majority of well-informed people thought "What planet are you on?"
For those, however, who are desperate to believe this narrative, a study by a niche online website called "Byline" came as manna from heaven. An article in the "Byline Times" which suggested that there was a major increase in the number of “short” positions taken by UK hedge funds when Boris Johnson ran for Conservative leader was shared tens of thousands of times on social media.
The basic idea is that hedge funds who were also donors to Vote Leave and Boris Johnson's leadership campaign would also profit by a "No Deal" Brexit by investing £8 billion in a bet on a it happening and causing a drop in share prices.
There is one slight problem with their analysis: if you look at the data correctly including both "short" positions which were still active at the time they did the analysis and those which were not, then it appears to Full Fact and a number of other people who have checked it that the supposed "spike" in short positions never happened.
The Byline claim is debunked at the Full Fact website here and in City AM here.
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