London's banks are checking out Paris, but Government could still keep them here

If ministers start to chart a sensible course regarding Brexit the worst of the economic damage could be contained. But there isn't much evidence of that happening so businesses are planning for the worst

Europe's new banking hub? Paris is trying hard to tempt London's banks (Simon Calder)

Well there’s a surprise. Paris’s chief financial regulator says leading international banks based in the UK are in the advanced stages of planning to shift some of their operations across the channel.

There was, of course, a subtext to what Benoit de Juvigny, secretary general of Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), told the BBC.

When he said some of London’s banks were knocking on his door he was also sending a message out to the others that are considering their positions: Come join them!

With Frankfurt and Dublin also seeking to grab their own pieces of the pie, you can hardly blame him. And Paris has a good story to tell. It will be a lot easier to persuade clever people to work in the city of lights than it will be to get them to move to dull old Frankfurt

But hold your horses. No one has jumped yet and we’re only at the stage of companies conducting due diligence, looking at the regimes they might have to operate under, talking to advisors, sizing up properties, mulling over how moving will affect their ability to hire people, and so on.

Whether they push the button depends very much on the British Government.

There is a real fear in the business community that Theresa May & Co will ultimately kowtow to Nigel Farage and his thuggish mates and opt for a hard Brexit. In that situation, banks and other financial companies would lose their passporting right to trade across Europe. They’d have no choice but to move the operations that are dependent on access to the single market.

That might not happen. But nobody really knows. Beyond the occasional hints from ministers, and the recent concession to MPs over the Brexit timetable, the Government has been operating under a veil of secrecy.

Its occasional decent into childish posturing, such as the recent talk of a “red, white and blue” Brexit, just adds more heat than light to an already dangerous situation.

Against that backdrop, companies have to operate on the assumption that things will end badly. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

The danger is that even if common sense prevails, and the UK opts to pay into the EU budget and thus retain some sort of access to the European single market, they’ll get so far along the process that it won’t matter. They’ll leave anyway.

Don’t much care about the banks? I don’t blame you. But if international banks do depart a substantial chunk of the £71bn in tax the financial services industry is set to pay this year will depart with them.

And it’s not just the banks. Other companies that rely on access to the single market have been quietly taking similar steps putting at risk still more taxes, jobs, opportunities for jobs, training and lots more besides.

It is still within the Government’s power to prevent this. Were it to go a bit further than people like David Davis have been willing to do, were it to make clear that the UK will seek to remain in the European Economic Area? Well, it’s not ideal. But at least we’ll be able to emerge from this mess with an economic broken leg as opposed to an economic broken neck as many of those businesses ultimately decide that they can stay put after all.

However, the longer the current situation carries on for, the less benefit the country will reap from that. The Government needs to get a grip.