Figures released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have confirmed two things. Firstly, the percentage of our exports to the other 27 member states of the EU is continuing to plummet. Secondly, the percentage of our exports to the Commonwealth and Anglosphere is continuing to rise.
With these trends set to continue, the day our trade with the Anglosphere and Commonwealth eclipses our trade with Brussels is coming ever closer. As it does, the Europhiles’ doom-laden predictions for our economy outside the EU are increasingly seen for what they are – pure propaganda.
The ONS Pink Book 2014, released today, showed British exports to the rest of the EU have dropped to just 44.5%. In 1992 our exports to the countries in the EU today constituted 56% of all exports. Over the same period British exports to the Commonwealth and the Anglosphere has grown from 28% to today’s 33%.
A disparity of just 11% between our trade with the Commonwealth and Anglosphere and our trade with the EU makes you wonder why Britain is being forced to pay billions of pounds to access the “vital” Single Market. In fact, the disparity between the official figures of exports to the EU and to the Commonwealth and Anglosphere is actually much smaller.
The official statistics describing our exports to the Netherlands and Belgium are distorted and appear much higher than they should do. Many goods being exported to the rest of the world stop off in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam en route to their final destination (known as the Rotterdam effect), and as such, are counted as contributing towards the EU’s figures.
Get Britain Out’s own research into these figures finds the percentage of exports going to the EU is likely to be around 38% – a mere 5% more than goes to the Commonwealth and Anglosphere!
We are the only member state of the EU which trades more with the rest of the world than it does with the other 27 EU countries. Because of this tariffs hit Britain much harder than the other EU countries.
We must Get Britain Out of the EU and back onto the world stage. Freed from the straightjacket of Brussels we can arrange free trade agreements with our historic and cultural allies, from Canada and the United States in the West to India, Hong Kong and Australia in the East.
This, on top of a free trade agreement with the EU which would preserve our access to the Single Market, is not only a way to boost our economy but to reclaim our status as a proud, free trading and independent nation.
Luke Stanley writes for Get Britain Out
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