The Institute for Fiscal Studies in Britain has predicted that by the middle of the next decade, public finances will be in the red. It forecasts that GDP per person would be smaller in 2021 than forecast in 2016, that the loss of growth would mean that the economy would be 65 billion pounds smaller in 2021 than previously predicted. Average earnings were on course to be 1,400 pounds lower in 2021 than forecast in 2016. All this means that there is little hope of deficit reduction, or of easing pressure on welfare and public spending. Earnings growth will be flat for two decades and job opportunities sparse, by extension. (Phillip Inman in The Guardian, Dec 2017)

When one bears in mind the fact that flat earnings, poor job prospects and indecent gap between rich and poor put Trump in power and threatens the future of the US as a liberal democracy (in my opinion) then we can look forward to a Britain moving in the same direction, roiled in extremist politics and divisiveness. Brexit will prove much more disastrous than the loss of a few banks to the Continent. Finance is already an “over-mighty subject” that should be put back in its rightful box in any case.

Is all this “Project Fear”? Tom Williams, the chief operating officer of Airbus Commercial Aircraft, recently told the Guardian: “Far from ‘Project Fear’, a no-deal Brexit scenario directly threatens Airbus’s future in the UK.” Airbus is poised to abandon plans to build aircraft wings in British factories. The company directly employs 14,000 people in Britain, supports more than 110,000 jobs in the supply chain and generates £1.7bn in tax revenue.

Just the tip of the iceberg that Britain is irresponsibly on course to hit.