Jim Armitage: This flimsy White Paper means it could all go wrong

It seems not everybody in the Square Mile is as furious at Theresa May’s Brexit White Paper as the financial sector’s big lobbying bodies.

TheCityUK and The City of London Corporation vented their fury that the proposal fails to closely align the UK and EU financial regulations.

Their dream had been that we would have a mutual recognition agreement whereby the EU would accept our regulations and allow UK firms to sell into the continent without having to change them.

Instead, the White Paper wants to boost the EU’s existing regime of “equivalence”, where countries can have different rules as long as the outcome is the same.

But the critics don’t speak for everybody: other City CEOs say the plan is a compromise they can live with. Mutual recognition was never going to be palatable to Brussels anyway, they say.

They argue the new approach would still ensure we don’t end up being “rule-takers” from Europe.

We would still not, they say, have a situation where Europe, with its jealousy of our world-leading financial services dominance, makes regulations we have to abide by.

They also approve of the way the plan makes it less likely that we end up with no deal.

These City types are right on all those scores. But there’s an “if”, and it’s bigger than the Walkie Talkie building.

Not only is this White Paper thin on detail, it is a mere wish, a figment of Theresa May and the Treasury’s imaginations.

Getting Brussels to agree to it remains a horrendous task.

We may crash out of Europe yet. Businesses should prepare for the worst.