Brexit Talks and Theresa May, the UK General Election, Emmanuel Macron – and the Federal Reserve meeting still to come. What an exciting time in politics! Much has happened in the past three months that many people would never have believed could happen.
In April, the UK Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap general election. She believed should could increase her majority in parliament, and strengthen her hand, prior to negotiating with hard-nosed European politicians. At that time, Emmanuel Macron, the French presidential candidate, was predicted to fail in his attempt Guess what!
Today, Theresa May has lost her parliamentary majority and Macron looks likely to have the most popular victory since Charles de Gaulle 60 years ago. So where does the Fed come in? Is this to be yet another unexpected event? Doubtful! The Federal Reserve meeting is expected to increase interest rates – and there seems little chance of an unexpected event here!
It is feared that Brexit talks will be delayed because of the unexpected UK election result. However, now that Theresa May has spoken to the Queen, and taken the first steps towards creating a new administration, this delay seems unlikely. It’s pretty much business as usual, only with a majority dependant on the Democratic Unionist Party. As stated earlier, the DUP, to all intents and purposes, is the Tory party in Northern Ireland.
As for France and Macron, France has two sets of elections: one on Sunday and the other on June 18. Unless there is a Mayesque disaster for Emmanuel Macron, he will be looking after the French economy within 9 days. The French economic system is badly in need of attention. Even though it is believed to be set to increase by 1.4% this year, it is by no means healthy.
Going back to the UK, inflation has taken a rise, largely because of dropping against the dollar and the euro. By May 2017, the annual inflation rate had leveled at 2.7%. However, the fall of sterling as a result of yesterday’s election still has to be factored into this. Referring to the Fed’s interest rate hike, this has been expected so there are no surprises
This is a volatile period in British politics. There may be some difficult times ahead for the Conservative party – and for Labour if Corbyn fails to take advantage of this Tory setback. Many believe he has not the backbone – which is perhaps why the Conservatives are still the party in power.
Brexit talks and the Macron situation are awaited with expectation. The Fed rate hike has little interest to the Brits and Europeans at this critical time. It is still potentially a month of amazing results, although the Brexit talks and Macron will hold the news for a while yet.
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