Removing all trade and tariff barriers as part of a hard Brexit would generate ‘a £135 billion annual boost to the UK economy’, according to Professor Patrick Minford on behalf of Economists for Free Trade — while those who claim his ideas spell economic suicide are ‘hired hands, they work for government, they work for big industry…’ Well maybe, as I frequently say: Minford talks of a 4 per cent GDP gain from free trade, 2 per cent from ‘improved regulation’ and more from reclaiming our net EU budget contribution and ‘removing the taxpayer subsidy to unskilled immigration’. All of which adds up to much more, for example, than the ‘best-case scenario’ of a 1.5 per cent GDP gain identified by the think-tank Open Europe before the referendum — since which it would be hard to argue that prospects have dramatically improved.
The truth is that one professor’s guess is no better than another’s, because there are so many variables, including the practicalities of repealing EU red-tape and the impact of other economic and political events.
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