Brexit Economics

August 20, 2017 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

A group of Brexit economists has proposed that a hard exit would actually boost the economy. Their proposition has been widely condemned by other economists. This is the problem with economics. As a science there is no such thing, but as a discipline it is almost infinitely variable. One move this way will trigger consequences that way; everything is cause and effect. It is a matter of opinion which is good and which is bad. It is often a matter of ideology too. It is very much a matter of where you are in the economic fabric. Your neighbour’s advantage can be your disaster.

This is why it is in the end politicians who have to take decisions, because it is their job to manipulate the levers of economic power in an order which advances the  well being of the whole of society, bringing improved prosperity to all parts of it. It must also create the environment for the development of new technologies to build new trading opportunities and career prospects. This generates the taxation revenue to pay for health, education and environmental needs which make the whole process function on an upward trajectory. When politicians do that well the nation prospers.

But when they fall short, as now, prosperity flat-lines or retreats. Whatever economists say.