Dear Sir
A great many of the claims surrounding the EU
referendum, particularly with regard to the effect on trade are based on
speculation. I feel I can bring some objectivity to the argument with some
simple mathematics, which I encourage your readers to check for themselves.
According to the ‘Remain’ camp, the UK paid the EU a
net figure (i.e. not including spending on
‘EU benefits’ in the UK) of £8.5bn in 2015 to access the Single Market
(which is a ‘Customs Union’, not a ‘Free Trade Area’ as many believe). I
suspect the actual cost is higher, but for argument sake, we’ll use their
numbers. This equates to £708m per month.
According to the Government’s Office for National Statistics,
in February (the last month for which figures are available) the UK exported
goods and services worth £11.2bn to consumers in the EU.
Dividing the former by the latter and multiplying by
100 to express the figure as a percentage, we get 6.32. So effectively, the UK
pays a 6.32% tariff on all its exports to the EU.
According to the WTO (World Trade Organisation),
countries with no trade deal pay an average tariff of 1.09% on their exports – less than an average week’s swing in currency markets.
So, in the absolute worst case scenario of the UK
getting no Trade Deal with the EU post Brexit (which is unthinkable considering
non-EU, non-European South Korea and Mexico have one), we’d save the £8.5bn and
pay less than a quarter of the amount we currently pay to export into the EU.
Of course, the cost of complying with regulations for
products exported to consumers in the EU would remain unchanged, however, most
regulation of this type is now harmonised with global standards by
international bodies like the UNECE so products would comply anyway.
References:
https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/
Stuart Hutton CEng MIET.
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