Better Off Out?

Paul Johnson, that most plausible independent economist, uses some dodgy reasoning in his column in the Times today.  He, correctly, argues that making trade with (by far our biggest, richest and closest trading partner*) more expensive will not have net economic benefits.  Quite so but it is not a foregone conclusion, as he also argues, that leaving the single market and the customs union, re-negotiating trading arrangements (which is demonstrably in mutual self-interest) and finding better things to do with our membership subscription, would, necessarily, leave us worse off economically in the long run.

*I still haven’t received a reply from the BBC about this popular distortion.