Is Britain better off in or out of Europe?

Before deciding whether to leave the EU, we should back the Prime Minister’s efforts to reform it, says Simon Wolfson.
One way or another, it looks likely we will be given a referendum on Europe. Brace yourself for a barrage of misleading economic propaganda from both sides. Those who want to stay will characterise a British exit, or Brexit, as nothing short of economic suicide.
Those who want to leave will overstate the EU’s costs and present prosperity as the inevitable result of new found liberation.

In a report published today, Open Europe sets out the economic options facing Britain should we decide to leave the EU. It is a remarkably balanced document. To that extent, it will disappoint the headline grabbers on both sides of the European debate.
The report unearths one profoundly important truth: if we decide to leave the EU, whether we flourish or fail will depend on the political and economic decisions we take in the wake of departure. Of itself, leaving the EU will guarantee neither success nor failure.
If we leave and follow the path of protection, xenophobia and isolation we will indeed face the economic decline so feared by Europhiles. Open Europe estimates that, under the protectionist scenario, leaving the EU would cost 2.2 per cent of GDP by 2030. Alternatively, if we embrace free trade, roll back damaging regulation, and take a balanced approach to economic migration, then we could be more successful outside the EU than within. In such a scenario, we could add at least 1.6 per cent to GDP by 2030.

There are many political reasons people want to leave the EU. However, from a purely economic perspective, Brexit presents two big opportunities: liberation from debilitating EU regulation and the opportunity to improve our trade with the rest of the world.
It is estimated that the 100 most burdensome EU rules cost us £33 billion a year. If we left, we could eliminate a raft of needless costs. Of course, no government would cancel rules preventing asbestos exposure or guaranteeing minimum holiday entitlements. But £13 billion of costs could be eliminated without much disagreement: regulations ranging from the ineffectual but expensive renewables target to the requirement to count doctors’ on-call sleeping hours at home as active working time.
It is ironic that leaving the EU would leave us better placed to pursue free-trade agreements with the rest of the world. Currently, the progress of free trade is hampered by trying to negotiate agreements alongside 27 other countries, each with their own specific agendas. The EU’s tariffs on products from outside Europe remain painfully high.

Protecting your economy against external competition may seem like an attractive policy, but in fact it constitutes an expensive self-imposed tax, borne by all of us as consumers. In my own industry, customers pay an additional 12 per cent on goods made in China, adding £2.40 to a £20 blouse. The 12 per cent tariff is way too low to foster any UK industry but enough to push up the cost of clothing for millions of people. Similarly, tariffs on agricultural products mean we pay higher prices for food. The OECD has estimated that EU agricultural tariffs cost British consumers about £8 billion per year.

Outside the EU, Britain would have far more freedom to agree trade deals and grant the world’s poorest nations unilateral free access to our markets. Liberalising trade would lower prices for consumers, make us more competitive and so create more jobs.
There are plenty of trading opportunities out there for the UK: the company I work for exports its British designs to more than 70 countries. Developing and emerging markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and South America offer huge opportunities for British companies – from banks, to car plants right through to distilleries. It is interesting that Scotch whisky, which accounts for 24 per cent of UK food and drink exports, faces a duty of 150 per cent in India – one of its biggest potential markets.

Up to this point you might think exit looks like an economic win. But there are two big risks to a rosy Brexit.
First, would politicians really embrace economic liberalism? While we rightly complain about the cost of EU rules, in many cases the UK chooses to go further than Europe. When it comes to climate-change rules – costing us £8.5 billion a year – Britain has unilaterally imposed even more stringent measures than the EU requires. Politicians of all colours like to commit to deregulation, but when they go through the statute books they rarely find rules they are willing to remove. Even slowing down the tide of new regulation seems an impossible challenge for ministers.

Second, many voters, on both Left and Right, might not accept the global competition that removing trade barriers would unleash. For them, leaving the EU is an opportunity to build up national walls, rather than tear them down. Nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to free movement of people. Opposition to migration often ranks top of people’s reasons for leaving the EU. Yet Open Europe’s report demonstrates that the UK’s open labour market is a key part of our economic competitiveness – whether inside the EU or out. Those people who come to Britain (as my great grandparents did) to work hard, obey our laws, pay their taxes and contribute to our society actually create jobs, they don’t steal them. It seems like common sense to me, but it’s a message some of Brexit’s most ardent supporters are not willing to hear.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11488929/Is-Britain-better-off-in-or-out-of-Europe.html

Interesting piece there didge

leaving the EU is an opportunity to build up national walls, rather than tear them down.

Sums up why most anti EU English are morons. living in a long gone age when England was something. with out the EU you're got to compete on your own and simply nothing in the history of England suggest it will be capable of doing this without resorting to theft, Which you are no longer militarily capable of.
Choice is become a state of the EU, Accept vassal state status to a more powerful nation (that due to geography will likely be the EU anyway) or become a 3rd world shit hole used for slave labour and mail order brides.

It's better by a mile that we stay in and Cameron will pull out all the stops to make sure we do - with or without reforms.

Once big business gets involved especially, our foreign owned companies who have invested here, the result of any vote will be to stay in - in my opinion of course.

mores the pity....

but then TIPP will render it all moot anyway

dont worry we will soon all be eating the same poisoned food as theyanks, having to use the same tainted materials ...(full of phthalates and pcps...because they cant "prove" they are dangerous) and of course all food stuffs will be stuffed to the brim with corn syrup same as "over there"