, Columnist
Understanding the U.K.'s Strange Singapore Envy
It's too big to truly emulate the Asian city-state. Scotland, on the other hand ...
A shining example.
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A pro-Brexit argument that always makes me giggle a little is that leaving the European Union will allow the U.K. to become the new Singapore. That's right -- the land of hope and glory, home to the world's fifth-largest economy, wants to emulate its steamy little former colony, population 5.4 million.
When you look at the per-capita income data, though, you can kind of understand it. Once-poor Singapore passed the U.K. in 2006, and the income gap has grown to almost $3,000 a year since then: