The EU still represents a bulwark against the corruption of 19th-century trade

Outside a single market trying to keep faith with ethical trading, Britain faces a dog-eat-dog world of opacity and compromise The patterns of global trade are moving into a new era, except that they look like a re-run of a terrible past. It's not so much a concern about the rise of isolationist nation states - ones that put protectionist trade policies before the world's economic health. The fear must be that trade reverts to the 19th-century rulebook that rewarded the countries with the most m...