Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Gina Miller should leave the Bank of England’s new boss alone

She’s back. With Brexit ‘done’ and with most of the country just grateful to have moved on from the whole saga, we might have thought we had heard the last of Gina Miller. Miller, who became something of a figurehead in the anti-Brexit movement, could quietly return to doing whatever it was she used to get up to. Not so. Now she is back on the attack, demanding a ‘review’ of the appointment of Andrew Bailey as Governor of the Bank of England.

What’s her complaint this time? Apparently as head of the Financial Conduct Authority, Bailey presided over “a toxic cocktail of negligence, incompetence and indifference to the needs of ordinary depositors, investors and pensioners”.

Probably very soon we will see petitions, crowdfunded legal action and eventually a hearing before the Supreme Court to have him removed from office before he has even got his feet under the desk.

Miller has written to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak demanding Bailey is summoned before the Commons Treasury select committee. There are also calls for a full-scale investigation to be launched into his conduct. Probably very soon we will see petitions, crowdfunded legal action and eventually a hearing before the Supreme Court to have him removed from office before he has even got his feet under the desk.

But in fact, it is not hard to work out what is going on here. Miller has launched a Remainer guerrilla war. Sure, it is possible to make criticisms of Bailey’s tenure at the Financial Conduct Authority. There were some collapses, especially of London Capital & Finance and the peer-to-peer firm Lendy, both of which cost investors money. But Miller’s ‘report’ is flimsy with little substance in it. There is always the occasional financial firm that goes bust, of course.

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