Sir Mervyn King has said Britain should be ‘more self-confident’ about Brexit (Picture: David Jones/PA Wire)

If you’re feeling pretty gloomy about Brexit you shouldn’t get too downbeat, that’s according to the former governor to the Bank of England.

Sir Mervyn King, who led the bank for a decade, has said that while leaving the European Union will bring ‘great political difficulties’ there will also be ‘many opportunities’.

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And, regarding questions or a ‘soft; or ‘hard’ Brexit, the crossbench peer has said the UK should leave the European single market and possible the customs union too, which he said might constrain opportunities for new trade deals.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord King said it was too early to judge the economic impact of Brexit, despite data since the June 23 referendum being more positive than some economists had predicted.




He said: ‘I think the challenges we face mean it’s not a bed of roses – no-one should pretend that – but equally it is not the end of the world and there are some real opportunities that arise from the fact of Brexit we might take.

teh former governor also suggested UK should leave the single market (Picture: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

‘There are many opportunities and I think we should look at it in a much more self-confident way than either side is approaching it at present.

‘Being out of what is a pretty unsuccessful European Union – particularly in the economic sense – gives us opportunities as well as obviously great political difficulties.’

He said it made no sense for the UK to seek to join Norway as a non-EU member of the single market, which would allow free access for businesses but probably mean accepting freedom of movement of EU citizens.

And he raised doubts over the merits of remaining within the customs union, which would allow Britain to trade goods without border tariffs, like Turkey, but restrict its ability to strike its own trade deals.

He added: ‘I don’t think it makes sense for us to pretend we should remain in the single market and I think there are real question marks about whether it makes sense to remain in the customs union. Clearly if we do that we cannot make our own trade deals with other countries.’