Our second-biggest export is gold. This is because other countries like to keep their gold in our vaults ($300 billion worth currently), as we have earned a reputation as a stable democracy and so a safe place to keep it.
Oddly, even though we don't produce the gold, we don't refine it, and we don't add any value to it - we simply store it - gold exports are counted in our export trade figures. Remember this isn't even gold that we have bought and then sold on. It is as though we counted the cars of people going on holiday to France as exports.
This leads to some very misleading results. Gold comes ahead of pharmaceuticals and oil in those figures. Worse, the apparent jump in exports after the referendum was in fact due to many investors asking for their gold back. Rather than indicating overseas customers piling in as the pound fell, buying cheap British-made goods, it indicated a steep fall in confidence in the UK. Owners were willing to pay to move their gold to places they now regard as safer and more stable than the UK.
Most of the gold is sent outside the EU, meaning that stripping it from the figures tips the trade balance towards the EU. The corrected figures show that we do well over 50% of our overseas business with our nearest neighbours.
Not only does this mean that the Brexit-supporters' trumpeting of trade figures gives a falsely rosy view of our post-Brexit position, but the flight of gold confirms that overseas investors are spooked.
Far from being good news, our export spike is a clear warning.
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