Post-Brexit future cannot be predicted

NICK Canning (Write Back, October 9) missed the main thrust of my point about Graham Gudgin’s views on Brexit.

Mr Canning had previously stated that a no-deal Brexit was “... certainly against the national interest, according to all informed opinion”.

I refuted this sweeping statement and in doing so referenced Dr Gudgin in support of my view that “all informed opinion” was not the preserve of the Remain side.

Contrary to Mr Canning’s assertion, I did not quote Dr Gudgin, nor did I refer to any specific post-Brexit analysis.

Rather than simply acknowledge that there might be some informed opinions on the Leave side of the argument, Mr Canning appears to think that informed opinion applies only to those who support his views, and chose to focus on denigrating the work of the example Iputforward.

My original letter stated that Graham Gudgin’s “... assessments do not support the view that no-deal would be against the national interest”.

Mr Canning misquoted me by replacing ‘assessments’ with ‘assumptions’ — a small, but nevertheless significant, error.

Mr Canning agrees that, despite the gloomy prognosis from the Government, 17.4 million voted to leave.

He asks whether this was because the tabloid newspapers told us that it was just ‘project fear’.

This is disrespectful to Leave voters, not to mention inaccurate, because other media outlets clearly saw merit in leaving the European Union.

Furthermore, George Osborne informed us in 2016 that up to 820,000 jobs could be lost within two years if the UK decided to leave.

In May 2018, according to the UK’s independent fact-checking charity, the number of unemployed people over 16 and actively seeking work had decreased by 216,000 from April to June 2016.

Mr Osborne also claimed that households would be £4,300 worse off by 2030 if we voted Leave.

Leaving aside the wisdom of forecasting 14 years ahead, it subsequently transpired that this figure referred only to GDP divided by the number of households, not the direct effect on each family.

No one can accurately predict the future post-Brexit, assuming we do leave the EU, not least because of unknown factors such as the potential benefits of trade deals with non-EU countries.