Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
Actually you are.

You've been asked to put up an example of a comparable European country which hasn't left the EU and which is performing notably better economically.

You can't, because they don't exist. Until you can, your central point looks very weak.
I'm not dodging anything. I'm just not willing to engage in bogus debate.

I'll explain what is wrong with your method. If you look around at the studies of the effect of Brexit on the UK economy, what you'll find is that all the serious ones don't do cross sectional comparisons as is your want. The reason is such comparisons would be fatuous and misleading in the extreme. No two countries are sufficiently aligned socio-economically to be able to do outcome comparisons with the only difference as being Brexit/non-Brexit.

What is far more common (and accepted by all leading researchers) is to compare the UK with and without Brexit, examining its actual time path with that of the counterfactual that Brexit did not happen. One such study was done and produced the permanent 4% reduction in UK GDP. You know who did the study? The OBR.

Pretty much every study bar one that I'm aware of finds the effects of Brexit on the UK economy to be firmly negative. the one study that (before Brexit) prophesied a positive impact was done by Patrick Minford (Thatcher's and apparently Truss' economic adviser on the recent trickle down episode). Minford got absolutely slaughtered for it by some very heavy-weight and reputable guys at the LSE because he cherry-picked assumptions and scenarios, used old data and an outdated model to astound the orthodoxy (for orthodoxy, read people who know what they're talking about).

You'll probably want to fight me next. That's apparently what you Tory boys do now when you lose an argument. Cheery bye.