Airstrip One

The Benefits of leaving the EU

This was originally going to be a reply to this comment on the risks of leaving the EU. However I thought I might as well inflict it on the rest of you.

There certainly will be some economic dislocation from leaving the EU, but there are also economic benefits:

1) Economic regulations will be made in the perceived national rather than the European interest. I also think that as a consequence there will be fewer regulations, which will be no bad thing.

2) The multibillion contribution that we send to the EU can be dispensed with.

3) Needless Government spending that is either matched or mandated by the EU will be no more.

4) We will no longer have to enforce the highest tarrifs in the industrialised world.

5) Agriculture and fisheries. I don't need to say any more.

The idea that we need Europe for the guaranteed markets is a fondly held fiction. Even with the gross distortion of our terms of trade mandated by European obligations we still trade more outside the EU than within it, and as far as inward investment goes ultra Europa leaves the EU in the dust.

And all this is before we get to the political benefits of governing ourselves.