Britain can go it alone

Last year, Philip Hammond told a German newspaper that if the EU didn’t give Britain a favourable trade deal, Britain might slash taxes and regulations to become “competitively engaged”. Now, it is possible that the Chancellor meant this as a warning rather than a promise – but why doesn’t Britain do it anyway? The point of leaving the EU is to free ourselves from deadening regulations and to exploit emerging markets. The future lies with a smaller state.

Mr Hammond has now articulated the promise of Brexit once again with his remarks on the fate of the Galileo satellite navigation system. If Brussels blocks the UK from access, Mr Hammond said, the UK might build its own, “possibly with other partners outside Europe and the US”.

In fact, the EU would be fools to drive us away: British negotiators calculate it could delay the project by up to three years and cost the EU up to one billion euros. The importance of UK involvement is a reminder that the Europeans aren’t negotiating with Greece when it comes to Brexit: Britain is a major economic and scientific power that has the ability to walk away and flourish if it wants to. Our space sector is worth £14 billion annually to the Treasury and employs almost 40,000 people.

One reason why the UK is doing so well is because it has prioritised projects with commercial returns. It’s that economic model – market oriented, dynamic, forward-looking – that Brexit has the potential to unleash. So, Mr Hammond, again, may not have intended to say Britain should go it alone, but many have concluded that we could if we wanted to. In many aspects of our economic life, it would be far better if we did.