Mark Carney may have unwittingly strengthened the case for leaving the EU

I suspect that Mark Carney set out to strengthen the case for Britain staying in the European Union with his remarks in Oxford tonight, but his intervention may end up having the reverse effect. First, the Bank of England governor did not talk about the advantages of staying inside the EU. He spoke about the advantages of Britain being part of a free trade block; as Boris Johnson argues in the new Spectator this is still likely even if we vote to leave.

Here’s what he said:-

‘Broadly speaking, the evidence suggests that the UK has successfully harnessed the benefits of openness afforded by its EU membership while avoiding some of the drawbacks of reduced flexibility from which some continental European economies suffer.’

In other words, the single market helped – and we didn’t join the Euro, thus avoiding what William Hague so