The resignation of Lord Agnew, the government’s anti-fraud minister, in the middle of a speech last month, didn’t just dangerously raise the heart rates of various elderly peers. Agnew’s claim in his resignation letter that the Economic Crime Bill had been dropped from the government’s legislative plans was distressing for anybody who cares about stopping kleptocrats, oligarchs and organised crime lords stashing their loot in the UK.
Our public political debate is stuck in a 1980s time warp where everyone ritually demands more ‘bobbies on the beat’, but criminals have moved on. Old-fashioned crimes like burglaries and robberies are much less common, while online scams and frauds are growing. That means our law enforcement has to keep up to date, which is why the bill matters so much.
At the heart of it all are the global financial markets based in the City of London. They’re an important economic powerhouse for our economy, but they’re also a magnet for dirty cash. Even if only a tiny fraction of daily trading is illicit, it’s still big money. And since the City’s success depends on Britain’s reputation as an honest, rules-based, free-trading country, anything that corrodes our brand is lethal.
