I have had a lot of angry constituents, who have received the Government’s £9.3 million propaganda leaflet, contact me and this week the HM Treasury produced a 200 page document, including lengthy algebraic equations, saying why there would be a plague of frogs and Martians would invade if we vote to come of the EU. I think they are wrong and I think this a misuse of public funds, the claims are government propaganda dressed up as facts.
We know that if we vote leave there is going to be a period of uncertainty, as with any ending of a relationship, but in the Treaty of Lisbon (Article 50) there is a two year period set out during which we renegotiate our relationship with the EU. We think that we can use that negotiation to secure a much better deal for the UK, looking to trade with the rest of the world, freed from EU regulations.
HM Treasury’s document claims that by 2030 there will be a cost of £4,300 per household. Well trying to forecast what is going to happen 14 years out is impossible – HM Treasury struggles to forecast what is going to have 14 weeks out – so this is entirely speculation.
The report ignores the fact the EU is a shrinking trade bloc; the EU’s share of World GDP is just 60% of what it was in 1990 and we are continuing to contract in the EU, whilst the rest of the World moves ahead.
The report does not take any notice of what the risks and uncertainty of what would happen when the 18 Eurozone countries decide the legislation of the EU, which might not be in the interest of non-euro countries, like the UK.
The report does not take account of increased uncertainty of new Eastern European nations, who have much poorer economies, entering the EU, or the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. It says nothing about the uncertainty of the immigration crisis – 1.8 million people came into the EU last year, most of them from the Middle East and North Africa. The Treasury’s report actually forecasts that there will at least another 3 million people coming from the EU to the UK alone by 2030 at a time when the Government is trying to lower immigration to the 10,000s. We know in the South East of England the pressures immigration brings to our schools, hospitals, infrastructure and public services.
All that uncertainty does not feature in the Government’s propaganda. These are dodgy forecasts and dodgy numbers.
The Government’s propaganda also takes absolutely no account of the new trade deals we could negotiate with other countries outside the EU that we can do at the moment because we are part of the EU. A prime example is India; the EU has tried for the last nine years to negotiate a trade deal with India and it has just collapsed, conversely the tiny principality of Liechtenstein just negotiated a trade deal with India and took only six months.
India is an important trading partner and it could be a much bigger trading partner for us. Outside the EU we can get out there and negotiate trade deals with India, China, Russia, Brazil, Singapore and other growing economies of the world. That would produce more wealth, more jobs and greater stability and prosperity for the UK and our families. You will not find that in the Treasury’s document.
When you look at the trade deals that the EU has negotiated with other countries, the aggregate GDP, i.e. the value of the economies the EU has struck trade deals with, amounts to $7.3 trillion.
Meanwhile, the aggregate GDP of the countries Chile alone has negotiated is $58 trillion – hugely more than what the EU has achieved.
So do not believe the scare stories. The opportunities for Britain to be free to trade with the rest of the world in our interest is enormous.
As well as all this, the Treasury’s document does not take account of the reduce costs of having no longer to comply with EU regulations on business. We have something like 3,000 regulations every year which impose extra burdens on our business. Some of them are useful and we will continue to sign up to them, but many of them are not and produce extra bureaucracy and cost to our companies, which are then passed onto the consumer. The 100 most burdensome business regulations costs UK businesses £33bn alone.
We would not have to comply with most of that.
Just think how much better off our business and out families could be.
So this figure of £4,300 is completely nonsense and should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
I have had a lot of complaints that the referendum campaign so far has been too much based on negative scare stories and ‘Project Fear’. I am afraid the two pretty pitiful documents from the Government and the Treasury just confirm that.
So let’s Vote Leave on the 23 June for a fresh start and brighter future in the rest of the world, where 6.9 billion people live.