Jacob Rees-Mogg is taking charge of “Project Hope”, the counterpart to the “Project Fear” that Brexiteers often deride. It is an ambitious project, with some awesome claims attached to it.

Economists often toss gigantic sums of money around as casually as they might chuck their socks into the laundry basket. According to Jacob Rees-Mogg, quoting the pro-Brexit group Economists for Free Trade, the UK economy could enjoy a booty of some £1.1 trillion from a WTO option Brexit (the so-called no-deal scenario). For context, this is about two thirds of the entire national income for a year, some £1,100bn, or – deep breath – £1,100,000,000,000.

It is plausible, if you make certain assumptions. If Britain really became a truly “free trade” economy – at least for imports – then common sense tells us that the country could “shop around” abroad for the cheapest sources of everything from chickens to PCs.

Britain would be like a national version of Aldi or Lidl, buying up bargains from around the world, taking advantage, Del Boy-style, of the value on offer.

Brexit casualties Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit casualties Brexit casualties Andrea Jenkyns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary at the ministry for housing, communities and local government role May 2018 - The Morley and Outwood MP said: “We want to see a new relationship with Europe, with a new model not enjoyed by other countries – nothing that leaves us half-in, half-out. “And in order to achieve this, we need to leave the customs union.” Ms Jenkyn’s also said she wished to dedicate more of her time to Parliament’s influential Exiting the European Union select committee, after a series of “unbalanced” reports produced by MPs PA Brexit casualties David Davis - Resigned from Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - quit following a major row with May over her plans for post-Brexit relations with the EU. Davis resignation letter said: “As you know there have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line, ranging from accepting the [European] Commission’s sequencing of negotiations, through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report. “At each stage I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. “I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less and less likely.” He went on to argue that the “general direction” of Ms May’s policies would leave the UK “in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one”. AFP/Getty Brexit casualties Steve Baker - Resigned from Minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - Mr Baker, a key Tory figure in the Leave campaign, was David Davis’s main lieutenant at Dexeu, and was hailed as ”courageous and principled” by other Brexiteer Tories as he also left. Reuters Brexit casualties Boris Johnson - Resigned from Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Johnson said: "On Friday, I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail and congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. "As I said then, the government now has a song to sing. "The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat." Reuters Brexit casualties Conor Burns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - A Brexit supporter who worked alongside Boris Johnson stated in his resignation letter: “I've decided it's time to have greater freedom. I want to see the referendum result respected. And there are other areas of policy I want to speak more openly on.” Rex Brexit casualties Chris Green - Resigned from Department for Transport role July 2018 - The Bolton West MP said: "Parliament overwhelmingly decided to give the decision of whether to leave or remain in the European Union to the British people and they made an unambiguous decision that we ought to leave. "I have always understood the idea in 'Brexit means Brexit' is that the final deal should be clear to me and my constituents - that we have, in no uncertain terms, left the European Union. Twitter Ads info and privacy "The direction the negotiations had been taking have suggested that we would not really leave the EU and the conclusion and statements following the Chequers summit confirmed my fears. "I recognise that delivering Brexit is challenging, however I had hoped at tonight's meeting that there would be some certainty that my fears were unfounded but, instead, they have been confirmed. "I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve as Parliamentary Private Secretary and it is with regret that I offer my resignation with immediate effect." PA Brexit casualties Maria Caulfield - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for women role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. Lewes MP warned that the direction of travel did “not fully embrace the opportunities that Brexit can provide”. Ms Caulfield said in her letter to the PM: “The policy may assuage vested interests, but the voters will find out and their representatives will be found out. This policy will be bad for our country and bad for the party. “The direct consequences of that will be prime minister Corbyn.” PA Brexit casualties Ben Bradley - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for young people role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. The Mansfield MP said: “I admit that I voted to Remain in that ballot. What has swayed me over the last two years to fully back the Brexit vision is the immense opportunities that are available from global trade, and for the ability for Britain to be an outward looking nation in control of our own destiny once again. “I fear that this agreement at Chequers damages those opportunities; that being tied to EU regulations, and the EU tying our hands when seeking to make new trade agreements, will be the worst of all worlds if we do not deliver Brexit in spirit as well as in name, then we are handing Jeremy Corbyn the keys to No10.” PA Brexit casualties Robert Courts - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. MP Mr Courts said: “I have taken a very difficult decision to resign my position as [parliamentary private secretary] to express discontent with the Chequers [plans] in votes tomorrow. “I had to think who I wanted to see in the mirror for the rest of my life. I cannot tell the people of Woxon that I support the proposals in their current form.” Getty Brexit casualties Scott Mann - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. "I fear elements of the Brexit white paper will inevitably put me in direct conflict with the views expressed by a large section of my constituents. I am not prepared to compromise their wishes to deliver a watered-down Brexit. "The residents of North Cornwall made it very clear that they wish to have control over our fishery, our agricultural policy, our money, our laws and our borders. I will evaluate those principles against the Brexit white paper and ensure that I vote in line with their wishes." Rex

Sometimes, the cheapest places to find goods and services will be in the EU; but in many cases that is unlikely to be the case, and increasingly so as the EU, especially the “old” Europe of the south and west, loses more of its competitive advantage to the likes of China and India. We will, say, be buying more Volvo cars made in China, as we already are in fact. Nothing hooky or shoddy about that.

Overall, the cost of living would probably come down over time. If you believe that the consumer interest matters, then the effect on prices will be to boost people’s standard of living, as their pounds will go further (though that effect may be partially offset if sterling has to take a fall to improve competitiveness, post-Brexit).

If, in other words, you manage to keep your job or are already wealthy, then you could quite conceivably be better off.

Second, Rees-Mogg claims that trade with fast growing economies in emerging markets – which he knows well as an investment expert – will expand faster than with the EU (from a low base). Again, this has some credibility, but the size of UK trade with such economies is usually dwarfed by trade with our near and prosperous EU partners. So it would need a really rapid shift in exports to facilitate that kind of transformation. It could take many decades to come through.

I am not sure, though, that Rees-Mogg and his experts have sufficiently allowed for the damage to the “producer interest” in the UK. Everyone from Welsh fishermen and women exporting lobsters to the restaurants of Brussels, to Geordies making Nissan Qashqais to be sold in Poland or Greece, will find their livelihoods in jeopardy as Brexit adds complexity and cost to supply lines.

Conservative politician Steve Baker says that he doesn't foresee any change in the Brexit strategy

It is foolish to deny that, or pretend it will go away. It will not.

The UK economy will require a very painful adjustment. The question is whether the many thousands, if not millions of jobs that will be lost are worth any longer term benefit. The short term costs will be felt too in homelessness, crime, family breakdowns and the usual litany of social ills that overtake depressed areas. Perhaps wages can be adjusted down to help keep businesses going, but it might need to be a substantial cut; in which case the bonus of lower prices will be much less relevant if wages fall by even more. This has, after all, been the pattern of globalisation.

The most damning criticism of the Rees-Mogg project, though, is that there is nothing stopping us exporting to China right now – and the Germans, as ever, show us how it can be done. Any free trade deal with China, say, that might give us an advantage would be resisted by the EU, a much bigger partner for China, and we’d be obliged to give China certain trade advantages – thereby losing our ability to become a free trade, tariff-free beacon for the rest of the world. WTO rules forbid such preferential arrangements: there are many trade-offs in trade.

So that great big figure of £1.1 trillion – let us say £37,000 for each and every of the roughly 30 million UK households – needs to be subjected to some heavy caveating.

First, it will materialise, if at all, over many, many years – and the longer the time horizon, the more uncertainly so.

Second, as is so often said about Project Fear, economic forecasting is an unsure business. All sorts of assumptions about the economy can go wrong. For one thing, if the supply of labour from the EU is reduced, and not compensated for from elsewhere in the world, under the government's migration target of 100,000 per annum, what effect will that have on growth? What will trends in productivity look like when investment is already depressed? What will happen to the public finances under the pressure of Brexit? And the exchange rate?

And – most of all – what if Donald Trump provokes a global trade war?

Third, in particular, we cannot know what will happen to new dynamic trading partners. Right now, the boom in emerging markets is subsiding, and they tend to be more volatile. Much the same goes for their underlying economies. In other words, how do we know that the economies of China, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, parts of Africa and Brazil will grow as fast as they have, variously, sometimes in the past? There is no God given law about that.

In an odd echo, the UK actually joined the then-European Economic Community in 1973, just at the moment when their long run of post-war, economically miraculous high growth was coming to an end and turning into recession. Timing has not always been a great British virtue.

Right now the truth is that the costs posited under Project Fear are more immediate and concrete than the benefits – no doubt there in principle – pointed to by Rees-Mogg’s Project Hope.