As a Liberal Democrat, I am a supporter of UK membership of the EU for many reasons including the benefits of being part of the world's biggest single market. Being inside a huge borderless market of 500m consumers is good for British companies, British jobs and British consumers. The UK also benefits from over 70 trade agreements that the EU, negotiating as the world's most powerful trade bloc, has secured with countries across the globe.
Right now, when the UK economy is beginning to
turn a corner, the last thing the country needs is to jeopardise this recovery
by pulling out of the EU. In this respect, the Liberal Democrats are the only
party standing up and fighting for EU membership and what it means for British
jobs; the Tories are too divided to take a position, Labour lacks the courage
of its convictions, and we all know where UKIP stands.
Eurosceptic trade myth no 1: no jobs are
linked to EU membership so none would be lost if we left
A study published a few weeks ago (http://www.cebr.com/reports/british-jobs-and-the-single-market/)
shows that over 4 million jobs are linked to Britain's membership of the EU,
which given that 50% of our exports go to other EU countries, isn't entirely
surprising.
This doesn't mean that if we leave the EU, all those jobs disappear overnight, but it means those jobs are directly linked to our ability to trade (buy and sell) with other EU countries as part of the world's biggest single market.
In particular, the UK is very good at
attracting international companies to set up here as a springboard to the EU
single market, for example the Japanese car companies Nissan, Honda and Toyota.
These companies may not go as far as leaving the
UK in the event of the country exiting the EU (although we cannot be sure of
that), but uncertainty about future EU market access would at the very least
push them to slim down their UK operations to serve only the UK market rather
than producing for export across the EU.
I want the UK to remain an attractive
destination for foreign investment of the kind that has just seen Siemens
announce plans to create over 1,000 jobs in Hull in the renewable energy field.
Eurosceptic trade myth no 2: we can leave
the EU and retain the same trading relationship because "we buy more from Europe
than they buy from us"
This is where it's easy to expose a gaping hole
in Eurosceptic rhetoric. While the UK buys more goods from the rest of the
EU than we sell, the opposite is true of services, which represent 80% (!) of
the British economy. The UK exports far more services to the rest of Europe
than they sell to us.
This is why our financial services sector (among others) is very worried about a potential EU exit as they fear the massive loss of business that would result from being locked out of the single market in financial services ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/28/uk-britain-europe-idUKKBN0DE0CD20140428 ).
UKIP and Eurosceptic Tories are doing their
best to hide this rather vital fact by repeating the "they sell more to
us" line without explaining that they only mean goods and not services.
Only the week before last on the Sunday Politics show, UKIP candidate Patrick O'Flynn
was made to look rather foolish when BBC journalist Andrew Neil had to spell
out the facts of British trade in services to the rest of the EU to him;
O'Flynn gave no answer. I have since tweeted him several times about this, but
he doesn't respond; one suspects either because he cannot or because a truthful
answer reveals the weakness of his party's arguments on trade.
China also sells more (goods) to the UK than we
do to China, but I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to claim this
would give the UK the upper hand in trade negotiations with China. However,
Eurosceptics would have you believe the UK (1 country, market of 60 million)
would be able to hold the rest of the EU (27 countries, market of over 440m) to
ransom. Pretty had to believe isn't it? Well unless you are living in the past
and think the British empire still exists....
Eurosceptic trade myth no 3: we can have
a free trade deal with the EU
It is possible to trade with the EU without
being a member country through a free trade deal. The most recent deal that
came into force was the EU - Canada trade agreement, which removed a number of
tariff and non-tariff barriers, for example in the food sector, which was good
news for the British food industry.
However, what UKIP/Eurosceptic Tories do not
want people to know is this: no EU free trade deal ever negotiated gives full
access to the EU single market. Nigel Farage mentioned Mexico's trade deal
with the EU in the Nick versus Nigel debate; a trade deal which excludes specific
sectors and products, such as dairy, grains and sugar, but of course he didn't
mention all these exclusions, wonder why?
The EU-US trade deal (TTIP), which is likely to
be the most significant trade deal ever negotiated, will not come close to
allowing American companies full access to the single market. Even the Swiss
with their 120 (!) bilateral agreements with the EU do not have access to the
single market in services.
So which sectors of the economy do UKIP and
Eurosceptic Tories want to let down by locking them out of the world's biggest
market? Does they think the British people are foolish enough to believe you
can have your cake and eat it? I credit the British public with far more common
sense than that!
Eurosceptic trade myth no 4: we can join
the EEA; trading with the EU, but free from Brussels rules
Some UKIP supporters and Eurosceptic Tories claim
that we can join the EEA (European Economic Area), which are countries that are
part of the single market, but outside the EU like Norway, thus allowing us to
trade with the EU as freely as we do now, but with no "interference"
from Brussels. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it?
The UK may be able to join the EEA, but what
would the implications be? As an EEA member, the UK would have to:
•
contribute to the EU budget
(the "small contribution" Nigel Farage says Norway pays is actually over
80% of the British contribution per head of the population), but have no say in
how it was spent;
•
implement EU laws that would be
decided without British MEPs and British government ministers at the
table in Brussels shaping those laws.
Or in other words the EEA option means
"out of Europe, but run by the EU". As Guy Verhofstadt, leader of
the Liberal group in the European Parliament and former Belgian PM once said
"You're either at the table in Brussels or you're on the menu". I
know where I would prefer the UK to be.
Even the Norwegian Foreign Minister himself has warned the UK against leaving the EU, saying his country had to put up with "regulation without representation".
Eurosceptic trade myth no 5: we can be
like the Swiss
The other option for the UK (advocated by Tory
Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan, who is at least honest about the impossibility
of a mythical have-your-cake-and-eat-it free trade deal promoted by UKIP), is
the Swiss option of negotiating sector by sector/policy area by policy area
cooperation with the EU.
This has so far resulted in Switzerland signing
some 120 (!) bilateral agreements with the EU. Each time there are significant
changes in relevant EU policy areas, Switzerland needs to update its bilateral accords
with the EU or initiate new ones. Despite hundreds of agreements with the EU,
Swiss companies are not free to buy and sell services in the single market;
imagine what impact that would have on the UK which has a trade surplus in
services with the rest of the EU. I would rather not thanks!
To monitor EU developments, the Swiss
government and Swiss business and civil society representatives are present in
Brussels following virtually everything the EU does in order to adapt
themselves to it. The Swiss lobby the EU institutions when decisions are being
made that will affect Switzerland, but without the benefit of having Swiss MEPs
and Swiss government ministers to fight their corner, unlike the UK whose MEPs
and ministers are on the ground doing just that. Well, except UKIP MEPs who
don't bother with the hard graft of standing up for British interests day in,
day out.
I was amazed to find Swiss government
representatives attending a meeting in the European Parliament on alcohol
policy. I was informed by one of them that "any changes in EU alcohol
policy will affect us, so we need to monitor the situation". This is a
policy area where the EU has very little legislative power!
This sounds like the worst of both worlds to
me; having to follow what the EU does and change your own policies accordingly
without benefitting from full access to the single market.
Eurosceptic trade myth no 6: EU
membership hampers the UK in global trade
The argument goes something like this: the UK
is "not free to trade with the rest of the world" due to being part
of the EU. This argument seems to assume firstly that EU and global trade are
mutually exclusive; ie you cannot do both, which is somewhat economically
illiterate. Selling to customer A does not prevent a business from selling to
customer B too.
Whenever I ask Eurosceptics why German
companies manage to sell far more to emerging markets like Brazil than British
companies apparently unhindered by the same EU membership that is "holding
back" the UK, I don't get any coherent answers.
UKIP talk about trading more with the Commonwealth
and even go as far as claiming that joining the EU destroyed trade with Commonwealth
countries. The truth is that trade with Commonwealth countries had been declining
for many years before the UK joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973.
Commonwealth countries set free from British
colonial rule naturally started to trade more with their neighbours than the
more geographically distant UK. It is no surprise that Australia's biggest
trading partners today are China and Japan (http://dfat.gov.au/publications/tgs/index.html).
I do not know how anyone could seriously suggest that Britain leaving the EU
would reverse this 50 year old trend.
In addition, the vast majority of Commonwealth
countries have trade deals with the EU and Commonwealth governments such as Australia
and Canada
say they want the UK to remain part of the EU. UKIP and Eurosceptic Tories are
so backward looking, they cannot see that our relationship with the Commonwealth
has changed, and we cannot go back to being an imperial power on whose empire
the sun never sets.
Another false claim is that the trade deals the
EU makes with the rest of the world with its huge negotiating strength as the
world's biggest trade bloc somehow disadvantage the UK. Britain's leading
exporters would tell you a very different story - UK exports to South Korea
have increased substantially since the EU-SK trade deal, for example.
In addition, the UK is very good at getting
British trade priorities reflected in EU trade policy, for example, one of the
products targeted in the EU - India trade negotiations is whisky! Roberto Azevêdo, Director General of the World Trade Organisation stated that
Britain risks losing influence in trade negotiations if it left the EU (www.huffpost.com/uk/entry/4773835)
and you would expect he knows a bit about global trade.
Even the winner of the "Brexit" essay
competition, much fêted by Eurosceptics, says that outside the EU, the UK would be
able to negotiate global trade deals, but this would not be from a position of
strength. Or look at it this way; the USA is currently negotiating a free
trade deal with the EU which will require both parties to adapt to each other's
trade rules, while the US - Chile free trade deal requires Chile to adapt to US
trade rules, but not the other way round.
And finally...
Another argument that UKIP and Eurosceptic
Tories put forward is that the UK should leave the EU because the EU's share of
world trade is declining, so it's an outdated concept. It is true that as large
emerging markets like Brazil, India and China grow, the share of world trade of
the EU (and other industrialised countries like Japan) is shrinking.
However, there are two huge caveats here.
Firstly, this is not a quick process of change, which means that the UK
still currently sells more to Belgium (!) than Brazil, so it would not be
sensible to turn our back on our EU trade partners right now.
Secondly, and even more importantly, if current
trends continue, then some estimate that 30 years time, there may be no
European country in the G8, but the EU
will remain the world's largest single market. So in fact, the Eurosceptic
argument against the EU is actually one of the biggest arguments in favour!
In the future, European countries can retain a
strong voice in global trade by acting togetheras part of the EU. I do not want
the UK to be on the sidelines without a voice at that moment, but a leading
member of the EU.
As a Liberal Democrat I want to look to the
future, protect Britain's economic recovery, retain a strong British voice in
global trade and fight for British jobs. The Eurosceptics want to hark back to
an imperial past long gone that can never be recovered, ignore the realities of
the modern world and put Britain's economic recovery in jeopardy.
The choice is clear for anyone who cares about
the future of the UK; it's In Europe In Work with the Liberal Democrats or out
Out of Europe Out of Work with UKIP and Tory Eurosceptics.
Thanks for sharing, nice post! Post really provice useful information!
ReplyDeleteFadoExpress chuyên dịch vụ chuyển phát nhanh siêu tốc đi khắp thế giới, nổi bật là dịch vụ gửi hàng đi mỹ, gửi hàng đi úc uy tín, giá rẻ.