The Continued Case for Brexit: The political and institutional effects of Britain's leaving the European Union are positive.

AuthorConnolly, Bernard

The mulish Theresa May seems hell-bent on destroying her party, abandoning her country's sovereignty, and betraying its democracy. But even she cannot be held solely responsible for the disaster of the Articles of Surrender she and her officials have accepted from their Brussels masters; and sheer cussedness cannot be the only reason for her appalling behavior. So what motivates "Project Fear": the preposterous projections and biblical scare stories dreamed up by those in Britain who want to keep the country imprisoned in a ruthless, nakedly anti-competitive, nakedly anti-democratic, and nakedly anti-British empire? Will these Remainer trolls--the nomenklatura composed of the denizens of the deep state allied with Davos Man and supported by Britain's gloating enemy, Brussels--succeed in frustrating the clearly expressed will of the electorate to leave the European Union, the single market, and the customs union? Why on earth are they trying to do it? Why will they not allow the people of Britain to get their country back?

In assessing the "projections" and scare stories, the first thing to remember is that the British Treasury--"the heart of Remain"--always gets things wrong, from being wrong about the Gold Standard parity in the 1920s all the way to being wildly. scandalously, inexcusably wrong in 2016 about the short-term impact of a referendum vote to leave the European Union. It is perplexing that anyone with an open mind still pays any attention to its current emanations. Fortunately, the British economy has ignored the Treasury's whining. It has performed extremely well since the referendum. or as well as its poor productivity growth, the bitter fruit of decades in the European Union, high taxation, ever-increasing regulation, the replacement of education with indoctrination in political correctness--and unlimited low-wage immigration--has allowed. Unemployment is lower than for two generations and the full-employment current account deficit and the public finances have improved dramatically.

The Treasury's use of the gravity model of trade and productive potential, which underlies its smirkingly pessimistic view of the longer-term impact of Brexit, completely ignores the crucial political and institutional context. The model is in effect heavily weighted towards the experience of integrating quasi-autarkic economies and autarchic polities--with extractive structures lacking contestability--into the liberal world economy. No one...

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