Stiglitz, a one time adviser to the Scottish government on independence and briefly a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s now disbanded economic advisory panel, has been in the UK to promote his new book, The Euro, and its Threat to the Future of Europe.

In it he argues that the root cause of Europe’s political and social ills lies in the creation of the euro, which rather than driving convergence among nations as intended has resulted in politically and economically destabilising divergence.

“The Brexit referendum was a shock”, he concludes.

“My hope is that the shock will set off waves on both sides of the Channel that will lead to a new, reformed European Union.”

Europeans were finally waking up to the idea that there is not going to be a euro without a crisis on the doorstep”, he told the Telegraph, “and that’s a gloomy prospect” likely to drive “a political backlash against the establishment standing behind the euro.”

However, the euro is not the only thing that has gone wrong in the European Union, Stiglitz argues.

“There were other mistakes. It is fairly clear that the EU has imposed more regulatory harmonisation than is necessary, and that this excessive enthusiasm for regulatory harmonisation is one of the things that has gotten the EU into trouble with the British”.

David Fuller's view

Joseph Stiglitz is saying what most people in the UK who have been following EU developments over the years already know.  However, perhaps the international reputation of this Nobel Prize winning economist will open some political eyes from the USA to Japan, where people have been seeing what they want to see.  The EU is a political and economic train wreck, as its own long-suffering citizens know better than anyone else.    

Here is a PDF of the Stiglitz interview from The Telegraph.