Email 'blunder' reveals Bank of England project assessing EU exit

Bank of England
Economy
Saturday 23 May 2015 at 3:59am

The Bank of England is looking at the potential impact on Britain of leaving the EU. Credit: Anthony Devlin / PA Wire/PA Images

A confidential Bank Of England (BoE) email, which was inadvertently sent to the Guardian newspaper, has revealed a secret project at the institution looking at the economic risks posed to Britain if the country votes to leave the European Union.

The existence of the Bank's project emerged as the Prime Minister insisted he was "confident" of securing reforms in Brussels and indicated he remains open to staging the in/out vote next year.

The BoE's project was supposed to remain confidential, but was accidentally revealed by the email blunder which revealed details of the project to a journalist.

According to the email sent to the Guardian, the media and most staff were supposed to be kept in the dark about the work, which has been codenamed 'Project Bookend'

The Bank of England's so-called 'Project Bookend' is being led by Sir Jon Cunliffe. Credit: Anthony Devlin / PA Wire/PA Images

The newspaper said the email indicates that a small group of senior staff are to examine the effect of "Brexit" - a British exit from the EU - under the authority of Sir Jon Cunliffe, who as deputy director for financial stability has responsibility for monitoring the risk of another market crash.

In a statement the Bank said the existence of the project should not "come as a surprise".

Today, information related to planned confidential Bank work on the potential implications of a renegotiation and national referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union made its way into the public domain, due to an internal email sent inadvertently to an external party. It should not come as a surprise that the Bank is undertaking such work about a stated government policy. There are a range of economic and financial issues that arise in the context of the renegotiation and national referendum. It is one of the Bank's responsibilities to assess those that relate to its objectives. It is not sensible to talk about this work publicly, in advance. But as with work done prior to the Scottish referendum, we will disclose the details of such work at the appropriate time. While it is unfortunate that this information has entered the public domain in this way, the Bank will maintain this approach. >