Britain’s tired old economy isn’t strong enough for Brexit | Phillip Inman

Leave campaigners' visions of national renewal depend on a level of commercial vibrancy that the UK can no longer muster

Brexit, at its heart, is a recognition that Britain has become steadily weaker since it spent much of its empire wealth fighting two world wars - too feeble in the years before the 2016 referendum to sustain an exchange rate of $1.60 and a1.40, just as it was too poor to cope with $4 to the pound in the 1950s and $2 to the pound in 1992.

Manufacturers were unable to make things cheaply, reliably or efficiently enough against the headwind of a high-value currency, forcing many to give up. An economy that boasted 20% of its income coming from manufacturing in the 1980s found it was the source of barely 10% at the beginning of this decade.

Brexit is only something - even if you accept the premise of socialism or free-market bonanza - that works on paper