NIALL FERGUSON: I was wrong on Brexit.

For years I have argued that Europe became the world’s most dynamic civilization after around 1500 partly because of political fragmentation and competition between multiple independent states. I have also argued that the rule of law — and specifically the English common law — was one of the “killer applications” of western civilization.

I was a staunch Thatcherite. I was a proud Eurosceptic. So what on earth, many old friends wondered, prompted me to take the side of “remain” in the referendum on EU membership?

A part of the answer is that I sincerely convinced myself that the costs of Brexit would outweigh the benefits. But I too readily trotted out the doom-laden projections of a post-Brexit recession from the International Monetary Fund, the Treasury, and others. I accused the proponents of Brexit of being “Angloonies” as opposed to Eurosceptics. My most desperate sally was to compare Brexit to a divorce — desperate not because the analogy is a bad one (it still fits rather well) but because I myself am divorced.

Why? The answer is partly that 14 years of living in the United States had taken their toll. Americans since the 1960s have wanted the Brits inside the EU to counterbalance the French, whom they do not trust. I had started to think that way. But a bigger factor — I must admit it — was my personal friendship with David Cameron and George Osborne. For the first time in my career, I wrote things about which I had my doubts in order to help my friends stay in power. That was wrong and I am sorry I did it.

I think if Ferguson spent more time here in Flyover Country, he’d find that the Americans who “wanted the Brits inside the EU” are mostly clustered in the Blue coastal enclaves, where many other bad ideas go to flourish.