It is a principle laid down with some care in my Wealth of Nations that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. A nation that voluntarily contracts the extent of its market does not thereby enlarge the freedom of its manufacturers; it merely ensures that the gains from specialisation, which accrue to all parties in proportion to the breadth of their exchange, are distributed among a smaller number of hands, at a greater cost per transaction, than prudent policy would advise. This observation, which I confess I did not expect to require repetition after the better part of three centuries, has been furnished a remarkably thorough practical demonstration.
Ten years have elapsed since the people of Great Britain, exercising that sovereign prerogative which no philosopher ought lightly to dispute, voted to withdraw from the commercial and regulatory union that had governed their trade with the continent for the better part of fifty years. The intervening decade has not been without its instructive passages. The value of sterling fell sharply in the months following the vote and has not, on any sustained reckoning, recovered the ground it surrendered. Goods crossing between the island and its nearest neighbours now encounter a thickness of administrative parchment that would have astonished the most zealous customs officer of my own era. The fishing fleets, whose liberation was promised with some ardour, find themselves navigating a settlement that satisfies neither the fleets nor the fishmongers. Foreign direct investment, that steady indicator of where capital expects to find stable and predictable conditions, has redistributed itself in ways the proponents of withdrawal did not prominently advertise.
The continent, for its part, has not waited. The European Union, pronouncing itself inconvenienced rather than diminished, proceeded to deepen its internal arrangements, extend its capital markets, and recruit new members to its eastern reaches. It would be an overstatement to say that Brussels has forgotten Britain; it would not be an overstatement to say that Brussels has other business.
Within the kingdom itself, the debate has not resolved so much as reconfigured. The question is no longer whether withdrawal was wise — that inquiry is conducted in tones increasingly archaeological — but what accommodation with the continent a future parliament might sanction without offending the spirit of the original decision. Whether a closer arrangement in agricultural standards here, or a partial restoration of labour mobility there, constitutes a betrayal of the referendum or a sensible adjustment to its consequences is a question that appears, on present evidence, to be inexhaustible.
I observed in my Theory of Moral Sentiments that the man who is proud of his own virtue is seldom the most virtuous man in the room. A nation that measures its independence chiefly by the volume of its declarations of independence may find, upon a careful audit, that sovereignty and prosperity are not, in the long run, enemies — but that they require considerably more effort to keep as friends than the original prospectus suggested.