The UK may stay in the EU but it is difficult to believe that the institution can ever be satisfactorily reformed. By now, the 32,000 employees (21,000 in Brussels) have created a bureaucracy that has created its own logic and is impervious to outside criticism – even when this comes from heads of state. The leaders of the UK, France and Germany have all expressed concern about the free movement of labour but the standard commission response has been that this is core to the single market concept and in any case generates wealth.
There is no doubt that the single market is good for business and particularly good for financial services. TheCityUK, a body which champions UK finance, has recently issued a report entitled UK and the EU: A Mutually Beneficial Relationship.