Empire 2.0

The Brextremists want the UK to operate under WTO rules - they want us to run at the cliff edge and jump, usher in a new golden age of free trade, a British Empire 2.0. This is why they have been pushing so hard, trying to make us act without careful thought.

Their argument is that once free of the restrictions of a regional trade association (i.e. the EU) we will be able to make any deals we want to and so we can make sure the deals are Good for Britain. They hold up the British Empire as their model, a golden age when Britannia ruled the waves and had a healthy trade surplus rather than a deficit.

As a contemporary model they point to Singapore, another densely populated island, highly developed, with a skilled and educated workforce.

The Singapore option is feasible to attempt, though geography will be against us - trade volumes fall off fast with distance and our closest trading partners (the EU and US) will put up high barriers (tariff and non-tariff) if we use that model. The social consequences will also be very unwelcome.

So what about Empire 2.0? Britain traded with the whole world, and that was before air-freight and containerisation.

Sadly things have changed. We are no longer top dog. At that time Russia was a serfdom, the USA was an agricultural economy, China a backwards-looking stratified society. Britain was the technological and industrial leader of the world. This allowed us to take what we wanted.

Our colonies' existence depended upon our superior weaponry and our willingness to use it on the native people with no quarter given. We went to war with China to force them to accept our opium - a War for Drugs, maybe?

We are subject to international law. Our cotton mills were fed with slave-picked cotton. There were a number of rebellions in India - the jewel in the Empire's crown - which is hardly surprising given that we squeezed everything we could from there, irrespective of the harm, suffering and deaths caused. Our own colonists revolted due to the taxes their Mother Country imposed.

I may have planted an idea in those Brextremist bonces - forget trade deals, let's just invade our prospective trade partners and make them buy our stuff. However this is no longer feasible: We no longer have a global technological advantage, and world opinion has turned against genocide. I for one am glad - I sincerely hope we cannot turn back time.

The British Empire encompassed both good and evil, you may judge it for yourself, however that is not the issue. The issue is Britain's future - our future - and the Empire is certainly not a guide to that future.