Worry for markets if Brexit process gets slower: Nick Parsons

The UK government today lost a landmark legal challenge after the Supreme Court ruled that Prime Minister Theresa May must seek Parliament's consent to take Britain out of the European Union (EU). Nick Parsons of National Australia Bank says now the big issue for the market is the time taken for the enactment of the legislation to leave Brexit. He says the process should be quicker. Below is the verbatim transcript of Parsons' interview to Sonia Shenoy & Anuj Singhal.Latha: What do you make of the judgement? What does it do to the Brexit process? Does it get slower?A: Its 8:3 defeat for the government. The government had been suggesting over the last few weeks that they expected to lose 7:4. So if anything, it's marginally great to defeat. However, it's one side; it's not a big issue. The big issue for market is the time that is going to take now to enact the legislation. There have been fears prior to this judgement that the authorities of Scotland and Northern Ireland might themselves have to have a vote on whether or not article 50 could be triggered but the law lords in that judgement just now rejected that argument. They say that Scotland and Northern Ireland assemblies do not have to have a vote on this and to that extent you would say it is a victory for the government.Before we decide what victory and defeat actually means in terms of financial markets, the quicker the process, the more likely it is to be something which the government is in control of and can therefore be seen to be hard Brexit. If it is going to be much slower and Scotland and Northern Ireland would get a vote, it will be known as softer Brexit. So you would suggest that this urge towards the side of a harder, quicker Brexit, we expect further government statement during the day-to-day and it is possible that even during the parliamentary session this afternoon that the government then presents the bill to the Parliament explaining its legislative programme to leave Brexit. So for the moment at least we are on track to meet the March 31 deadline, which the government has imposed.