Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is an affable cove, argumentative in a jolly sort of way, but with a hidden seriousness often overlooked.

He is frequently right in his assertions, occasionally he goes badly wrong.

He’s at it again, arguing for an old-fashioned version of free trade in the face of a worldwide downturn and a rush to shore up national economies and infrastructures long neglected by obsessions with global solutions.

Bring back the status quo ante, cries Boris, in the teeth of a gale of rage against the tattered remnants of the ancien regime.

His article in this morning’s Daily Telegraph promotes the classical case for free trade: specialization (a result of what’s called “comparative advantage”) and an acceptance of a dependency on others for a wide range of the necessities of life.

The UK, for example, has specialized in financial services in the City of London and elsewhere, while allowing a massive dependency on the rest of the world for manufactured goods and agriculture.

Hold on, wasn’t Britain once the “workshop of the world”? Didn’t we produce some of the greatest agricultural produce on the face of the earth? Weren’t these skills central in pulling us through two world wars in the 20th century?

Explain then why they were sacrificed to the make-believe world of finance, which absorbed many our best graduates, turning them into barrow-boy traders, or designers of financial gambling instruments that inflated the entire planet with unpayable debt?

Is that what Boris means by free trade?

And here’s another conundrum: why have British politicians, especially Brown and Blair, deceived the public into signing away national control over critical aspects of life and commerce to the most unresponsive and cack-handed organization ever conceived in the world’s long history? I refer, of course, to the elephantine European Union.

Is that free trade, Boris? If it is, there’s a large majority in this country that would prefer not to have anything to do with it.

The fact is, free trade, like all freedoms, has to be designed around the grain of human nature, not the mental machinations of policy wonks. It starts with the individual, not a bureaucratic oligarchy.

Does anyone believe the crackpot system we have had across the world, and in Europe, for the past decade has covered itself in glory? Most of it was built up during the “hunkering down together” period after World War II, when legislators were terrified of further wars.

Ninety percent of that system has proved itself redundant and ready to be scrapped. “Free trade” has become synonymous with maintaining this failed superstructure.

The next British Government, which may at some stage include Boris Johnson, should heed public rage at the restrictions of the hated European settlement. A loose trade association is all Britain will require in the century ahead.

And what about democracy, Mr Mayor? How is it that each treaty we sign, each organization we join, hands power on a plate to international bureaucrats at the expense of the very people in whose name this sacrifice is made? The rootless sherpas of world politics and trade have no knowledge of local needs or cultural preferences. Peter Mandelson is a perfect example.

The most dangerous pressure cooker for politicians of all stripes is a build up of anger and frustration by large numbers of people who believe their voices are not being heard. That’s how revolutions start. We should have long outgrown that primitive tendency.

Free trade is easily done if you have something worth selling and the other chap has something worth buying. The big bloc approach masks the necessity to develop products and services that are useful to others.

There is also a vital requirement to have a balanced economy that is not brought down by the collapse of a single sector. Cuba’s reliance on one crop, sugar, is a classic example. Britain’s lop-sided specialism in financial services and house swapping will be viewed in the same light in future.

David Cameron will be at his strongest when he first comes into power. He should use that power to ease the UK out of the EU and into an Associate position on its perimeter. He will not be forgiven if he fudges that essential step.

John Evans

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