The lecture considers the process of the Brexit decision and negotiations from the time the decision was made to hold a referendum to when Parliament made one of the most far-reaching decisions in generations. The lecturer considers some general principles of rationality and reviews how some basic concepts in economics can illuminate the nature and procedures of the decision-making process by voters, politicians and government and EU negotiators. The focus on rationality concerns the process of decision-making rather than the actual decisions. Although a decision-making process may have elements of irrationality this does not necessarily mean that the final decision is irrational.

David Llewellyn is Professor of Money and Banking at Loughborough University and has been a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Until recently he was Chair of the Banking Stakeholder Group of the European Banking Authority and before that a Public Interest Director on the board of the Personal Investment Authority.. He has previously held posts as an economist at Unilever in Rotterdam, the UK Treasury in London, and the International Monetary Fund in Washington. He has researched and written extensively in the areas of competition and structural change in the financial system, the role of technology in the evolution of the financial system, and financial regulation.