“UK manufacturing activity in December 2016 was at its highest level since June 2014.” This shows Brexit fears were unfounded, Howarth argues ©PA Wire/PA Images

Last week the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, compared the Bank’s miscalculation on the impact of a vote to leave the European Union to be equivalent to Michael Fish’s infamous error about the Great Storm of 1987. Fish brushed aside concerns that a hurricane was about to hit southern England, whilst the Treasury warned that a hurricane would hit the British economy if we voted to leave. Both have had to eat humble pie.

As the Times reported last Friday, the UK has the world’s top economy.  But before the referendum, “experts” predicted that the economy would experience an immediate downturn. In reality it has picked up, growing by 0.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2016 compared to 0.3 per cent in Q1, before the referendum.

The scale of the miscalculation is stark when one looks at the language used in the lead up to the referendum. On the 23rd May—exactly a month before the referendum—the then government released an announcement which predicted that a vote to leave “would cause an immediate and profound economic shock across the country,” whilst George Osborne stated that we had “one month to avoid a DIY recession.”

The reality has been quite different. Instead of falling into an immediate recession, the UK economy has grown since the referendum. Major companies have invested in…

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