Chris Grey

It was sold on the basis that it would be positively advantageous.

And those, as you say, small number of economists who I think actually banded together and became called economists for Brexit.

And I think I'm right to say, but I won't.

I apologize if I'm wrong, but I believe that Julian Jessup was one of them.

One of the members of that group, best known one, was Patrick Minford.

Leaving aside the idea of the benefits of their waiting to be taken in the future, as we speak, they have been proved wrong.

So it is doubly strange to then be in a situation of saying, well, we've got to be even-handed about the economists who have interviewed, as you say, for this sort of 10th anniversary.

The whole 10th anniversary thing is really kind of quite interesting because of the fact that at one level, and I think a lot of the discussion is and is going to be of that sort, it is kind of like looking back and saying, well, what happened and how has it worked out and all of that kind of thing.

But I think the other thing is that the very fact that the 10th anniversary conversation is happening now

in the way that it is happening is itself a moment in the Brexit process that is a demonstration of how it has failed.

Because don't forget, Brexit for its advocates was supposed to be a moment of national liberation,

the beginning of a national renaissance.

And David Frost, who we mentioned earlier, was asked, I think in 2022, was asked, you know, what would be a test of the success or failure of Brexit?

And he said, well, I think Brexit will have failed if we're still talking about it in the same way in five or six years time.

So he said that in 2022.

So technically, we're not at that point yet until 2027.

But still, here we are in 2026.

And it's absolutely clear that Brexit is still being discussed in very much the same ways as before.

In other words, it has not settled as a sort of, you know, as an accepted, let alone a desirable situation.

And that's not by any means just about the economics, of course, by the way.