Must-Read: Martin Wolf: Zombie ideas about Brexit that refuse to die

Must-Read: Martin Wolf: Zombie ideas about Brexit that refuse to die: “As Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has rightly noted, the initial impact of Brexit will be ‘deglobalisation’…

…not a “global Britain”.

This is self-evident…. Today’s intra-industrial trade, particularly within supply chains… [is not] the inter-industry trade of the 19th century…. In trade today both proximity and regulatory barriers matter. It will be impossible to offset the loss of favourable access to EU markets, which now take some 40 per cent of the UK’s exports. Even to start on this, the UK would have to reach favourable deals with the US, China and India, the actual and potential superpowers. In all such negotiations, the UK will be very much the weaker party. Talks would be brutal.

Yet another zombie is the idea that it will be possible to shift smoothly to WTO terms for trade with the EU…. The last zombie is the idea that those who deny the claims of the Brexiters are “traitors” or “saboteurs” working against “the will of the people”. This is despotism. In a liberal democracy, we are all entitled to our opinions and to seek to overturn what we consider grossly mistaken decisions. The saboteurs are those whose zombie ideas have brought the UK to a ruinous break with its neighbours and natural partners. It is our right to argue this. And we will.