RugbyRebels

UKHamlet wrote:

Stones of granite wrote:The document linked to below was recommended to me. I'm still working my way through it, so haven't formed an opinion on it yet, but it seems quite balanced so far.
http://assets.woodford.in/the-economic- ... Brexit.pdf

An interesting paper. It took some reading and there are some significant flaws in it, not least the optimism that we would achieve "most favoured nation" status given the requirements of Article 50 and the probability of us being subject to the "EU Common External Tariff Regime", before anything could be done about it, if there was indeed a mood to do anything about it at all.

The probable reduction in GDP, ranging from the awful figures from EFTA of between 6.3% and 9.5% and the more optimistic Open Europe figure of 2.2% is disastrous in either case - give our current growth is 1.9% and falling. You're looking at immediate recession at best.

The quoted "path of economic openness" advocated which would somehow add 1.6% to national income isn't quantified in any way and neither is it explained what is meant by that (although I think we all have an idea) and what its impact would be on living standards for those reliant on wages. Neither are the figures for the cost of membership claimed by the Institute of Directors, Civitas and UKIP, the latter being completely risible.

There is a very interesting paragraph:

The terms of departure and whether or not the United Kingdom negotiates an agreement with the European Union governing the future relationship will determine the magnitude and direction of the impacts of Brexit. Currently the United Kingdom is part of the single market, with free movement of goods, services, people and capital within the European Union’s border. It is likely that Brexit would change this.

My conclusion from that is Britain would suffer enormously as a consequence of being denied access to markets on a level playing field, markets that account for more than half our exports.