This article (HERE) appeared in The Sunday Times yesterday, apparently suggesting intellectuals supported Brexit - the headline was: Brainy Brits come out for Brexit. It gives the impression that ALL intellectuals supported leaving the EU. What it should have said is a tiny minority of them do. The list of these intellectuals looks like the z list from a polytechnic reunion. In fact brainy Brits come out for Brexit is surely an oxymoron.
You can be a brainy Brit or you can come out for Brexit, but you can't be both.
In fact you can see how "brainy" these people are when you read the article itself. They make the usual mistake of claiming the Treasury's short term forecast was spectacularly wrong. But as I have pointed out umpteen times it was predicated on Article 50 being triggered "straight away". You can see this in paragraph 1.42 of the report.
The Treasury was in an impossible position. Produce a forecast on what the prime minister had publicly stated as government policy or produce a forecast based on waiting nine months to send the Article 50 letter. Had they done the latter, Cameron would have looked a fool - or more of a fool than he actually was.
Imagine what would have happened if Cameron had actually sent the letter the following week. The pound took a big hit anyway and in the economic uncertainty business would have panicked and started relocating to Europe. This is starting to happen now when we are probably going to get a two year transition period. Just think how markets would have reacted at the end of June 2016 with two years to get everything agreed.
So, no I don't regard these people as the intelligentsia. They're either stupid or misguided.
