By Mark Gregory | Chief Economist, UK | EY   The UK remained the number one destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe in 2018, ahead of Germany and France, with 1,054 projects, its third-highest number of FDI projects in 20 years. However, this was a 13% drop in FDI projects compared to 2017 (1,205 projects) and according to our survey perceptions of the UK as an FDI destination have weakened. The latest EY UK Attractiveness Survey, which launches today, shows that...

Vulcan Consulting – Post European election analysis    From Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 May 2019 all 28 Member States of the European Union went to the polls to cast their votes in the European elections. While results are still coming in from some jurisdictions, we now know the following: this is the most politically fragmented European election in history. What you need to know Populists win: As predicated, Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and nationalist parties nearly won nearly a third of the seats with 31 –...

Latest developments Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that she will resign on 7 June. A contest will then resume between multiple candidates in the Conservative Party deciding who will replace her as leader of the Party and as the new Prime Minister. Though it remains to be decided and worked out, the contest is likely to be completed by the end of July at which point a new PM will take office. Theresa May will remain PM until...

Key Events This Week May announces resignation setting off leadership contest Theresa May ended months of speculation about her leadership this morning as she gave an emotional statement confirming she would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party on June 7th. She will remain as Prime Minister until a new successor is chosen by Conservative party members with the expectation that over a dozen candidates may enter the race. The Prime Minister’s fate was sealed this week after a bruising rejection from...

Key Events This Week Brexit: State of Play If Brexit goes ahead, the Scottish Nationalist Party under Nicola Sturgeon will seek another referendum before the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary Elections. Sturgeon suggested that the case for independence is “even stronger now”, given the “profound changes” that have occurred since 2014. Brexit has been a political gift to the SNP. 62 percent of Scots rejected it, in every single region – the most resounding Remain vote of the UK’s four nations. A year after...

By Oliver FitzGerald | Mason Hayes & Curran, The  High Court of England and Wales ruled this month that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is not able to terminate the twenty-five year lease of its Canary Wharf headquarters in London. EMA relocated its headquarters to Amsterdam following Brexit and argued that the Lease, which has a current rent of £13 million per year, was terminated by ‘frustration’ as a result of Brexit. Introduction In this article, we look at the concept of...