Brexit Facts

07 Jun 2016

First of all, I’m not sure there are any.  Secondly, some economic “shock” from exit or negotiations during exit seems to me to be inevitable, however the “freedom dividend” may partly or wholly offset this.  How you compare future freedom against future income and reduced independence is the issue, if only our politicians would confront the issues rather than treating us as incapable of understanding them.

Roger Bootle, executive chairman of Capital Economics, explains why the economic arguments about Brexit have fallen into group think. He says experts from the Bank of England, HM Treasury, the IMF and the OECD have come to broadly similar conclusions “because their economists come from the same stable, make the same assumptions, use the same methodologies and look in the same, wrong, direction.” He goes on to point out that a Brexit would give Britain the ability to stop levying the EU’s external tariff on the imports that we buy from the rest of the world, lowering prices in the shops. Mr Bootle cites former deputy director of the IMF’s European and research departments, Ashoka Mody, who also says there isn’t an irresistible economic case for remaining in the EU. He recently said: “The official consensus on the economic costs of Brexit has crossed the line into group-think. A numerical illusion is masquerading as a 'fact’. And when those in authority distort facts, they also subvert the cause of democracy.”

What price democracy?  I think we need to ask if there is a price (where there is much debate) and if so if it is worth paying (where there is very little debate).

So, no answer here, I’m afraid, just a suggestion that we consider the question carefully and also perhaps consider how good we are likely to be in exit negotiations and in coming to new arrangements with existing trading partners (why change them, can’t we just cross through “EU” and substitute “GB”?).