Leavers were fond of telling us that we are the fifth largest economy in the world. Indeed, but did they look at the size of the first three?
The first two are giants, and would drive two very one-sided hard bargains with us. But, hey, leaving the EU will give us a chance to do more business with the so-called BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Well, the last one is China again – one of those tough talking giants we just mentioned. The others are actually not really as large as you might think – and they all have economic problems of their own.
The Leavers also – especially UKIP – have great hopes for Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well. But there again, Australia and Canada are not especially large and I’m afraid new Zealand is pretty much a minnow.
So how is leaving the EU – the largest trading block on the planet – going to work to our advantage? No-one really knows.
Don’t you thing that we Brits sometimes get a bit above ourselves and overestimate our global importance? The chart seems to suggest that.