Whenever someone tells us that we should be like someone else it turns out to be Norway. In 2014 the Scottish independence campaign held up the small, separate, oil-rich Scandinavian nation as an example of what small oil-rich countries could become. Many Brexiteers similarly laud Norway for its separateness from the EU and — as they did at a conference in London yesterday — imagine a future when we can join Oslo in a mighty customs union outside the clutches of Brussels. Though the politically-correct Norwegians may wonder how all those anti-EU campaigners managed to unite and find 15 speakers on various topics, and not one of them was anything other than a white man.

But that’s a small point, as is, frankly, the Great