The case for British exit from the European Union
- Free trade
- Britain could have the opportunity to negotiate new free trade agreements with major EU trade partners and fast-growing emerging countries such as the BRICs, MINTs and Sub Saharan Africa
- Britain would benefit from freeing itself from many of the EU's complex and expensive laws & regulations
- Budget savings
- Leaving the EU would cut our contributions to the EU budget - a UK fiscal windfall
- Food prices would possibly be lower if we left the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
- Exports
- The UK is Europe's biggest export market. So Europe needs the UK as a trade partner for both to be successful in the long term
- Economic policy autonomy
- The UK would retain greater control over fiscal and monetary policy and also gain more freedom over labour market, competition and environmental policies
The financial services industry contributes a fifth of the UK’s annual economic output and had a £19.1bn trade surplus with the EU in 2013
Financial Times
Some counter-arguments – the case for staying within the EU single market
- Free trade
- Risk of losing trade benefits of being inside single market, lower per capita GDP
- Attractiveness of the UK as a destination for FDI would be diminished
- Adopting a position similar to Norway (which is outside of the EU) would mean the UK accepting many EU rules without having a say in their formulation
- Market Access
- UK will lose tariff-free access to its largest export market
- London would no longer be the EU's financial hub
- No guarantee that the UK could negotiate an arrangement to Norway or Switzerland
- Extra costs
- Extra costs for businesses as they ajust to new legal frameworks outside of the EU
- Europe might decide to retaliate and prevent favourable trade deals with UK
- UK's net annual spending on the EU budget is tiny – less than 1% of GDP (about the same as UK overseas aid) - for small budget savings, the long-run economic cost of leaving the EU will be high
- EU students can apply to study at any university in the bloc and pay the same fees as nationals - this might change in the event of a UK exit
- Over 1.8 million UK people live in the EU, it might become harder and more costly for them to live and work in EU countries because the EU single market allows free movement. Some EU countries might introduce an investment visa requirement
(Source: Tutor2u)
