With Government considering closer ties with the EU, a new Policy Exchange report today authored by Rt Hon Lord Lilley, the Trade and Industry Secretary who oversaw Britain’s entry into the Single Market, warns the EU reset will impose costs that exceed the Government’s own estimate of its benefits, with no voting influence over future changes. Lord Lilley, who as Trade Secretary predicted accession would boost British exports writes that he was “proved wrong”: over the UK’s 28 years of membership, goods exports to the EU grew by less than 1% a year, while exports to the 111 countries with which Britain traded on WTO terms alone grew almost four times as much – by 87%.
Policy Exchange’s new report ‘A Triumph of Hope Over Experience: Labour’s EU Reset’ outlines the failures of Government negotiation and approach to the European Union. Lord Lilley warns that the proposed Reset repeats the same act of faith – “a triumph of hope over experience” – at a far worse price.
It is reported in the paper that further dynamic alignment produces wider risks to the British economy:
- Merging the UK and EU Emissions Trading Schemes will cost British Industry an estimated £1.1 billion per year.
- Dynamic alignment puts £11 billion of UK pharmaceutical exports at risk of US tariff reversion of up to 100%.
- As a condition of joining the EU electricity market – the UK must adopt a target of 42.5% renewables in total energy consumption by 2030, against a current UK share of just 16.4%.
- Joining the Erasmus+ scheme has cost £570m a year, nearly double the UK’s previous contribution of £290m and more than 5x more costly than the Turing scheme (£110m).
- The EU is the principal beneficiary of an agri-food deal, as the EU exports nearly four times the agri-food that the UK exports back.
Click here to read the report Below (PDF)
This report was originally published on the POLICY EXCHANGE website and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author
