‘Performance of EU market is abysmal’

I’D like to add my twopence worth to the few writers who act as though they are the font of all knowledge on Brexit.

Here are some facts to digest. Yeah, facts at last, folks.

The European Union may be a market of 500m people, but its performance is abysmal.

It is largely a low growth, high unemployment bloc. Germany’s outsized trade surpluses are a selfish indulgence and in danger of making it a global pariah.

One only has to look at the breakdown of turnover of some of our greatest companies to recognise how the world is changing and Europe is less relevant.

Some 43% of sales at AngloDutch Unilever are now in AsiaPacific. A further 32% in the Americas.

Europe is just 25% of what it does. Diageo is important to the UK because of Johnnie Walker, but continental Europe is now just 10% of turnover.

Commerce and industry recognise the best opportunities for expansion and profits are outside Europe.

The Government needs to recognise its shortcomings and bring together all elements of Parliament for a concerted effort to make it work.

The most obvious requirement is a ‘Marshall Plan’ for infrastructure.

We need to get on with airport runway expansion, invest in electrification of trans-Pennine railways, finish Crossrail and scrap HS2 and implement a drastic shake-up in the management of the railways.

The roll-out of high-speed broadband is ridiculously slow.

We need to embrace it with the same urgency as South Korea and Spain. Where is the money to come from?

That a nation with the most sophisticated financial system in the world should be asking such a question is preposterous.

There is no end of sovereign wealth and utility funds hungry for well-run projects and the Government could be the guarantor to such investment.

UK creative industries have been the fastest-growing sector of the economy since the financial crisis, expanding by 17.5%.

But they are suffering from a stripped-down curriculum in schools where art and design, literary skills, technology and music are grossly devalued.

Predicting the outcome of the Brexit negotiations has become impossible.

What is evident is that the UK must be better prepared to be the best at what it does and go global.

That requires willpower, vision and investment.

Oh, and stop the privatisation of the NHS now!