Mark Carney's Next Move

The economist led two central banks through two era-defining upheavals. Is politics his future?

- CURTIS GILLESPIE

It took over three centuries and a Canadian to make it happen, but when Mark Carney was hired as governor of the Bank of England, in 2013, he became the first foreigner to run the institution since it was founded, in 1694. The response to his appointment was rapturous, bordering on parody. The British press alternately called him a banker from “central casting” and a “rock star.” Carney, stepping away from the same position at the Bank of Canada, was just forty-eight years old. He was brought on to modernize the UK’s ossified banking system, and kudos poured in from the left, the right, and the centre. “Mark Carney is the outstanding central banker of his generation,” former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne told the House of Commons.

Then, Brexit.

From the moment then prime minister David Cameron floated a referendum to leave the European Union, in the early months of 2013, until the day the exit was made law, Carney was increasingly in the spotlight. He was asked, repeatedly, what impact leaving the EU might have on the economy. Tradition dictated that the bank governor remain above the political fray. Carney, however, was blunt in his assessment that the decision could lead to economic disaster —  he even worried publicly about the possibility of a “cliff-edge Brexit.” He did not venture this as offhand opinion: he was, after all, governor of the central bank. Nevertheless, this was seen as taking sides. Suddenly, in certain parts of the country and some segments of its media landscape, he went from being Hugh Grant to Hannibal Lecter.