A PART FROM Economists for Free Trade ( EFT ), a pro-Brexit group, almost no wonks believe that leaving the EU without a deal would be good for the economy. The majority flinch when Boris Johnson, the new prime minister, promises that Britain will push off by October 31st “come what may”. Yet the question of just how bad a no-deal Brexit would be has many answers.

On July 18th the Office for Budget Responsibility ( OBR ), the fiscal watchdog, warned that a no-deal exit would “push the economy into recession”. The next day Oxford Economics argued that “no-deal Brexit might be bad, but not OBR bad.” Capital Economics, another consultancy, wrote last year that in its central no-deal scenario “we don’t expect...a full-blown recession.” Estimates of the long-term effect on GDP are even more varied (see chart).

If Britain leaves without a deal it will become a member of the World Trade Organisation on its own, not as part of the EU . Britain would generally have to charge the same tariffs on EU imports as on non- EU ones. Regulations governing everything from medicines to electricity connections to financial services could lapse.