'Be Careful Of Doomsday No-Deal Predictions' Trade Expert Warns

9 December 2018, 13:02 | Updated: 9 December 2018, 13:05

An international trade expert says it is "incredibly difficult" to predict the impact of trade policy but warns against doomsday no-deal Brexit predictions.

Shanker Singham noted that countries have "notoriously failed" at predicting trade and regulatory policy in an economic sense.

But the director of international trade at the Institute of Economic Affairs added that 'if the UK did nothing' then "there may be some negative consequences."

Speaking to Nigel Farage, he said: "If you're assuming the UK will do nothing different if we have a WTO or an advance free trade agreement with the EU, then yes there may be some negative consequences and disruptions.

"But we aren't going to do nothing different, we are going to change."

Mr Singham also explained what the World Trade Organisation is, and what a 'WTO Brexit' (or no-deal Brexit) looks like.

"It's not some faceless bureaucracy, it is actually a group of member countries which is almost all of the world.

"These members essentially agree the terms of trade between them, and they have very successfully lowered things like for example the industrial goods tariff.

"The whole purpose of it is to make trade flow more easily."

Watch Mr Singham break down the World Trade Organisation in the video above.