The Economists for Free Trade

The above are a band of economists who are said to support Brexit. Some of the few who do, and today they published a report that was high on promise bu light, very light on detail.

It states early on: "A world trade deal under WTO rules would boost the UK's trade with the rest of the world including Europe," This is clearly bollocks.

First of all, it is not a deal, its a fallback position where a country trades on the most basic of trading schedules. This would destroy farming at a stroke, decimate exporters, and on the day the Chairman of Jaguar Land Rover said that if the "wrong kind of Brexit" was secured, it would cost the auto industry tens of thousands of jobs and his company something like a billion pounds a year.

No country in the world trades exclusively on WTO schedules, only one, Montserrat, did, but they have secured deals to protect their fishing industry. As this is what all sensible countries do, protect what is important to them. Not suggest to abolish all tariffs and non-tariff barriers on EU good which would mean the UK being flooded by cheap EU goods.

The paper goes on, "If the EU insisted on slapping WTO tariffs on British exports," well, under WTO rules, the EU would be mandated to by the very same WTO rules the EFT and Brexiteers are trying to push today. If the EU did not apply those tariffs on the UK, then it would have to do the same to all third countries. Simple WTO rules.

Let's be honest here, there are no scenarios where trading on WTO schedules and rules will make UK better off, but JRM suggests that UK would be £1.1 TRILLION better off. THis is a figure so ludicrously high, that it wouldn't be out of place in an Austin Powers film.

The problems is not that the EU would treat the UK differently to any other country, it that it would treat the UK exactly the same. This has still not go through to the Brexiteers, although I suspect it has, but they just don't say those things in public.

The paper also claims: "Imposing non-tariff barriers to trade are illegal under WTO rules," which is a plain and simple lie. Having a different language is a non-tariff barrier, having different rules and regulations is also a non-tariff barrier, which is where we see the genius of the EU, eliminating non-tariff barriers by having common rules and regulations across all 28, soon to be 27 countries. This facilitates free trade, enabling a country anywhere in the EU able to sell to a customer in Walsall or Warsaw. Tax equivalence an a joint customs union just further streamlines and reduces costs in pan-European trade.

It was a main plank of the Brexiteers reasons for leaving the EU that common rules and regulations eroded UK sovereignty, now they see the imposition of same rules as an issue.

The report tries to say that non-EU trade has increased by a larger margin than trade with the EU, but this is the Father Ted sketch, trade with countries nearer is cheaper and much larger than with those far away. If the UK exports 1% of its trade to China, and in a period of time that increases to 2%, it is accurate to say that is increased 100%, but then doubling not very much won't replace the 50% plus of exports we send to the EU.

If this was the grand plan, the trump up their sleeve, then it was a disaster, and Mogg, Johnson and IDS know it, as they were all photographed holding their heads in their hands, knowing the game is up. Many of them have had years, decades, to come up up plans and answers that the UK is encountering now, but they never had a plan, just thought having the idea was enough. They can't even admit that the Irish Border, the one lnad border between the UK and EU would have to be thought about, and accepted not just by the UK nations, but by Ireland and the EU too.

History will not be kind on these charlatans, and rightly so. But it will also not be kind on those who sat back and facilitated Brexit and the snake oil salesman. Johnson, IDS, Fox, Gove, etc will be OK, their seats might be lost and popular political careers be over, but their party, the thing they are trying to split apart, will give them a Lordship and a seat in the HoL, access to the gravytrain they have been gorging themselves on for decades, and they have the kahunas to rail against what they call "elites".