Can we rejoin the EU? It was daft to leave but don’t romanticise the idea

Bringing all these effects together in a so-called doppelganger model — comparing UK performance with what it would have been had we not left — John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform (CER), estimates that last year the UK economy was more than 5 per cent smaller than if had there not been a vote to leave.

His research has had a baptism of fire — challenged by other economists — but has come through it well. For those who think the effect is smaller, or larger, the 95 per cent confidence range for the negative effect is 3 to 6.7 per cent.