False assumptions

Mr Rees-Mogg has endorsed a "budget for Brexit" produced by Economists for Free Trade (EFT). EFT is headed by Professor Minford, a Brexit believer.

Their idea is to reduce taxes and trade barriers to encourage trade with the rest of the world. Singapore has successfully used this model, though there are costs. Their government has set most import tariffs to 0%, and has put few restrictions on overseas investment. International trade in Singapore is equivalent to 300% of its GDP.

EFT claim that copying them will bring in £135 billion over the first five years.  Professor Minford also believes that the prices of imported goods will fall by 10%, based on the comparative prices of goods inside and outside the EU.  He says that less sunny forecasts by other economists and the Office for Budget Responsibility are based on "false assumptions".

Professor Minford does admit that the policy would hit British industry hard. He says, "manufacturing would be subjected to competition. The metal-bashing element, the pure making element, would reduce substantially."

Again, taking Singapore as a model, his suggestion is that "those industries doing that would go up the value-added chain and become more and more high tech."

Easy to say when you are an ivory tower academic whose 'reduce substantially' means thousands of people being thrown out of work when their factories close. He surely realises that industries and their workers don't magically become 'more high tech'. The reality on the ground will be industries collapsing, lay-offs, rising unemployment. The transition will be painful, old industries dying and being replaced - we hope - with something else. Skilled workmen will be deskilled overnight. And not every metal-basher can retrain as a robot repairman.

Note too that reducing our tariffs to zero does not mean our trading partners have to do the same. So we will be trading at a disadvantage to them. Given that most tariffs are at around 3% it does seem curious that Professor Minford believes making them 0% will do so much magic. How similar is Britain really to Singapore? Can copying a couple of ideas of theirs turn us into Singapore-Upon-Thames, or are these his own "false assumptions"?

In fact, the professor ignores the biggest difference between us and Singapore - our productivity is much lower than theirs. We need to sort that out before throwing open the flood gates.

One way to teach a person to swim is to throw them in at the deep end. They learn or they don't - sink or swim. Mr Rees-Mogg and his professor want to throw our economy into the deep end - hoping some of it will float. Fortunately Mrs May cares more about people than money.