Exports to Europe ‘plummeted’

BRITAIN’S export performance in the EU demolishes claims that the single market has been a massive benefit for the UK, Leave campaigners said last night.

The revelation came amid a growing row over warnings by the heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund that Brexit could tip the country into recession and slash family incomes.

Brussels statistics over the last decade show the value of British exports of goods to other EU countries has fallen in cash terms by just over 18 per cent – worse than any other member state apart from Luxembourg. In the last 15 years, the value of British exports of goods to the EU grew just 0.33 per cent – worse than any other.

By contrast, German exports of goods to the EU during the same period rose by nearly 80 per cent.

Meanwhile pro-Leave politicians were scathing about financial institutions meddling in the referendum campaign.

Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith yesterday questioned whether Chancellor George Osborne was involved in arranging for IMF chief Christine Lagarde to release her findings the day after the Bank of England. “Do you think they told each other or talked to each other about what they were doing? I wonder about that,” he told BBC One’s Sunday Politics programme.

He also claimed Bank governor Mark Carney had breached his impartiality duty, adding: “I think the governor has strayed now into the expression of what is a simple, personal prediction.”

Mr Carney yesterday defended his warnings about the likely negative impact if Britain leaves the EU. He told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “We have a responsibility to explain risk and then take steps, because by explaining what we would do to mitigate them we reduce them.”