Don’t forget about the WTO

WHEN this country leaves the EU at the end of March, we will not be “crashing out”, but cashing in, as we are under no obligation to pay the EU £39 billion.

According to Article 50, the UK is allowed to leave the EU without being liable for any outstanding financial obligations.

Just think of how we can spend this sum, on schools, the NHS, help for the elderly in their own homes, repairing pot holes, upgrading the railways, restoring our depleted armed forces and police, reviving agriculture and fisheries plus job creations for the young. The EU cannot complain as they have received some £500 billion from the UK since 1973, what one might call an eye-watering sum.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a safe haven not a hard option. The WTO guarantees no discrimination so the EU could not impose tariffs or barriers to UK trade. Furthermore, UK exports to countries we trade with on WTO terms have grown three times faster than our exports to the Single Market since it was established.

In addition, the UK is a WTO member so does not need to rejoin. The UK is a member in its own right as are all founder members of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the precursor of the WT0. Our departure from the EU means that we can have the laws we want, have a fair and sensible immigration policy as well as having the farming and fisheries industries our country needs.

So when we go at 11pm on the 29th March let us raise a glass of English wine or beer and drink a toast to our country’s freedom once again and remember the words of the late President of the USA, Franklin Delano Roosevelt who once said: “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself ”.