​The hot gas surrounding Brexit

IMF slashes UK growth forecasts after Brexit - but Britain will still outstrip Germany, France and Italy

"UK GDP growth is now expected to slow to 1.3pc in 2017, some 0.9 percentage points below what had been pencilled in in the IMF's previous round of forecasts. With the exception of Nigeria, the UK’s 2017 growth forecast received the sharpest downgrade of any of the 16 economies assessed by the IMF.

More after the Break.

Maury Obstfeld, the IMF’s chief economist, said that the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU had added “downward pressure to the world economy at a time when growth has been slow”.

He said that “the direct effects specifically due to Brexit are greatest in Europe, especially the UK”.

Despite the downgrade, economic growth in Britain will still outstrip Germany and France, whose economies are expected to expand by 1.2pc next year. The UK will also beat Italy, where GDP is forecast to rise just 1pc."

But still the yammerheads in the EU seek retribution for Brexit. This will ultimately be handled by cooler, more reasonable men, or it will be damaging to the EU. Britain could be injured by this, but this is much less likely. 

These "economic forecasts" based on highly speculative information are about as valuable as Presidential election polls takes two years before the election. They are fun but useless. Once we know the made up economic forecast we actually know less than we did before. Heh.

The British economy post Brexit will mainly be determined by whether or not Britain can establish a significant number of free trade agreements with other valuable trading partners like the US, Canada, and the rest of the Anglosphere, including India. A trade agreement with the EU would be beneficial mostly to the EU but also to Britain. 

Britain should enter the negotiations with a hard nose approach, and be willing to walk away if it cannot obtain a reasonable agreement. Let Germany, and the other major nations put the pressure on the EU negotiators from the inside. The EU with its now near terminally anemic growth needs Britain. But Britain can replace the EU with other trading partners.