Wetherspoon’s boss is right to mock doomster economists over Brexit

In the referendum run-up, we were inundated with warnings and messages of doom and gloom about the untold damage Brexit would unleash – and unleash immediately. It took a pub boss – Tim Martin, the founder of JD Wetherspoon’s – to add a bit of perspective. Why, he argued, would consumer sentiment plunge of a majority voted Brexit and got what they wanted? Why, if we wouldn’t actually leave the EU for two years, would the economy fall of a cliff? At the time, he was mocked for knowing nothing more than how to pull pints. But now, with the prophecies of economic woe having failed to materialise, it seems he was more on the money – a point he has made. In a long, detailed letter, he had this to say:

‘The overwhelming majority of FTSE 100 companies, the employers’ organisation CBI, the IMF, the OECD, the Treasury, the leaders of all the main political parties and almost all representatives of British universities forecast trouble, often in lurid terms, for the economy in the event of the leave vote.