Sunday, April 15, 2018

Bill Mitchell — The facts suggest Britain is not as reliant on EU as the Remain camp claim

I have been doing some analysis of British and European Trade patterns over the Post World War 2 period. They reveal some very interesting insights that are seemingly lost in the on-going war by Europhiles against Brexit. One of the recurring themes in the Brexit debate is the so-called importance of membership of the European Union to on-going prosperity of Britain through trade. What the data reveals is that British exports growth did not accelerate with accession to the EU in 1973 and after the introduction of the ‘Single Market’, British exports to the EU started to level off and then decline rather sharply. In other words, Britain has been diversifying its exports and is less reliant on the EU than it was say in the early 1990s. The data also shows that the creation of the Single Market hasn’t even boosted intra-EU or intra-Eurozone trade. Additionally, and laterally, the data suggests that the introduction of the euro has not expanded intra-EMU trade. The claims by the Euro-elites that it would were a major part of their justification for pushing through to the common currency. I consider this sort of evidence has been largely ignored by those in the Remain camp, who prefer to base their assertions on the highly questionable ‘forecasts’ coming from neoliberal-inspired ‘models’, which have so far demonstrated an appalling record of accordance with the facts. The data I have shown here doesn’t provide an open and shut case for Brexit. But it does show that the importance of EU membership to Britain’s prosperity is probably overstated and that Britain will prosper if its own policy settings are appropriate.
Bill Mitchell — billy blog
The Facts Suggest Britain Is Not as Reliant on EU as the Remain Camp ClaimBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

4 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Andy B is reporting from the ground there that the EX/IM infrastructure isnt there yet... then as they think they are "out of money!" they probably wont be building any soon so might be some chaos at transition...

Ralph Musgrave said...

The above requires a link,
I think.

That's poetry...:-)

Tom Hickey said...

Oops. Fixed. Thanks, Ralph.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39114

Andy Blatchford said...

Yep Matt that is exactly the problem, the infrastructure is just not there on both sides of the border. They have left it too late now, should have started as soon as they put in Article 50. UK, France & The Netherlands are recruiting border staff, we can't or do any training until we know what any deal is.

I have 100 mile queues as my guess.