Mark Carney may face down Brexit critics and 'serve full 8-year term' as Bank of England governor

The governor of the Bank of England (BoE), Mark Carney, is planning to serve his full eight-year term despite his critics' campaign for him to resign, it has been reported.

Carney is said to be considering making a statement about his future this week, possibly ahead of the BoE's inflation report on Thursday (3 November), after conferring with the prime minister Theresa May and chancellor, Phillip Hammond, the FT reports.

Carney has been under fire by pro-Brexit ministers for his negative forecasts for the UK economy in the run up to the EU referendum. Calls for his resignation have grown after Britain posted a relatively strong economic performance since that 23 June ballot.

In a column for IBTimesUK today, Tory MEP Daniel Hannan argued that Carney's intervention over Brexit - when the governor warned that the UK faced recession if it voted leave - was inappropriate.

"He strayed well beyond monetary policy and told us that, if we voted Leave, unemployment would rise and growth would slow," Hannan wrote.

Carney took over as governor in June 2013 for an eight-year term, but with an option to leave after five years.

The Times had reported Carney was likely to quit in 2018 but the FT says he is "leaning strongly" towards staying until 2021.

Sources say he will seek to defend the BoE's independence and hopes to steer the UK economy through the difficult period once the government triggers Article 50 in March 2017 to split from the European Union.

However a BoE spokesperson played down the contradictory reports about his tenure and told the BBC "nothing has changed", adding: "The governor has said he will make his decision public by the end of the year."