Linda Lim, Columnist

Brexiters, Stop Fantasizing About Singapore-on-Thames

Those who imagine the U.K. can emulate its tiny former colony don’t understand much about the real Singapore.

February 13, 2019 at 6:00 AM UTC

Linda Lim is a Singaporean economist and professor emerita of corporate strategy and international business at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

The city-state’s success isn’t guaranteed.
Photographer: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images

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Many pro-Brexit Brits are taken with the idea that the U.K. doesn’t need to belong to a large bloc any more than its tiny former colony Singapore does. The Southeast Asian city-state, they argue, has flourished by lowering taxes and opening up its economy to trade and investment, and so can a post-Europe Britain. Those excited about the prospects for “Singapore-on-Thames,” though, might want to take a closer look at how Singapore itself works. Or doesn’t.

It is true that the tropical port has thrived on trade since before Sir Stamford Raffles landed there 200 years ago. British colonizers encouraged free flows of capital, goods and labor, which integrated the island into the region’s colonial-plantation export economy.