In the furore over how Britain should look post-Brexit, it’s surprising that we haven’t heard more about South Korea. Because whether it’s Switzerland, Norway or Canada, the countries most commonly held up as possible models don’t actually resemble us at all.

Those looking for a better glimpse into our future could do worse than scrutinise the peninsular country probably best known for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and Psy’s 2013 K-pop smash hit Gangnam Style.

Almost entirely coastal, South Korea has a population of just over 50 million and a land mass of roughly 100,000 sq km – not far off the UK’s 60 million and 130,000 sq km.

Like Britain, Korea is highly urbanised. Seoul is a mega-city with an even larger population than London’s. Both dwarf anything on continental Europe. South Korea also thrives on the creative “soft power” so cherished by UK politicians. The country’s profile benefits hugely from the fact that K-Pop, as typified by Psy, is the sound of young Asia, and K-drama – long-form TV serials – is beloved across the continent.

But it’s in its recent economic history that South Korea offers the most appealing comparison – at least for Brexiteers. Despite the 1997 Asian financial crash, the collapse in US imports that followed 9/11 and the repercussions of the 2008 banking crisis, South Korea has an incredibly successful economy that is driving up standards of living faster than almost any other country on Earth.

Crucially, the South Koreans have done that via the kind of export-led, hi-tech, skills-based economy that Brexiteers and CBI types are always talking about. If you’re reading this on a device, there’s a good chance it’s a Samsung Galaxy. The only tech company to really challenge Apple’s global hegemony is South Korean. With their dominance of TV and the burgeoning virtual reality sector, the South Koreans may well have the edge.

But the key point for the pro-Brexit lobby is that South Korea has achieved all this without being part of any major trading bloc and without having direct access to any natural resources of its own.

If the question is how, the answer is probably first through a huge and sustained investment in education and skills. And second, by sending its negotiators out to conclude a series of bilateral trade deals that would leave Liam Fox green with envy.

Things kicked off with a US-South Korea free trade agreement signed in 2007. Those of us worried that the UK could find itself embroiled in decade-long wrangling might be heartened to learn that negotiations were announced on 2 February 2006 and broad terms were concluded 14 months later. Similar agreements with China, Canada and Australia followed. Most of these were in force by late 2015, leaving South Korea free to trade with almost every major economy in the world.

European negotiators signed their own free trade deal with South Korea in October 2009. After Nafta, this deal is the largest, most comprehensive and liberal free trade agreement in the world. I am a fervent Europhile and remain voter – but even I wonder how European leaders can denounce a free trade deal with the UK as an implausible outrage, when they’ve already signed one with a country 8,000 miles away.

But if the South Korean economy – whose steep growth in the 1950s is known as “the miracle on the Han river” – offers comfort to panicky remainers, what about the other post-vote questions that vex us? By that I mean the issue of what kind of country Britain will become. Since 23 June, many of us have been wondering how to deal with the ugly sense of division that followed the vote.

Here the lessons offered by South Korea are more complex. Because South Korea has achieved all its prosperity almost entirely without immigration, and without ever having had an empire. In fact, South Korea is one of the most ethnically and culturally homogenous nations on the planet, with 98% of the population in a recent census described as being of South Korean origin.

There’s plenty of evidence that this has fostered an insular and occasionally ugly attitude to outsiders. The problem of racism in South Korea was once considered so grave that it was the subject of comment from the UN. Until recent years, the South Korean government had no laws against discrimination, and online forums are full of backpackers and foreign workers complaining of racist abuse.

Millions of people across Britain feel painfully displaced by the waves of migration brought on by the free movement of labour – and their voices have now been heard. But thrilled though some leave voters might feel at the idea of recreating a UK monoculture, we’re way past the point where that could ever happen. Unlike South Korea, we are already a highly diverse nation – with non-white populations as high as 40% in some cities – and that’s not going to change, no matter how hard we cling to our union jacks. The challenge for Britain is how to strike out alone and remain outward-facing.

So next time the leave-remain debate rears its head around your kitchen table, maybe the South Korean example is a decent rebuttal to the doom-mongers?