Brexit impacts clear to see in economy
C Jackson (Letters, July 30) asks what the benefits of the European Union are that we would have missed on if we had never been members.
If we had never been in the
EU, we would never have had free movement of people and capital, meaning that those crops rotting in the ground now might never have been grown and the thousands of animals culled would never have been reared in the first place.
This could have led to possible food shortages, fewer exports and more imports and probably higher prices. Farmers would not grow crops if they couldn’t harvest them and they would not rear animals if they couldn’t get butchered.
There would have been more shortages of staff over the years in hospitals and the care sector in general as well, possibly with dire consequences. There would have been a shortage of staff in the hospitality sector, also meaning many businesses would have gone bust and some would never have existed at all, with an impact on people’s social lives as well as the economy.
Many of the financial institutions that are either fully or partly re-locating to the EU might never have been here in the first place or in a lesser capacity, meaning that the Chancellor would have lost trillions over the years rather than the billions it is losing now due to Brexit.
In many cases we have enjoyed lower prices in our shops by being members of the EU. A recent snapshot survey that examined prices of popular items at some pan-european retailers found that in a lot of cases, prices for items were a lot more in their UK outlets than in the EU. One retailer, Dechalon, that has 2,000 stores across 56 countries, largely blames Brexit for the price differentials.
They say that the UK’S exit from the EU has made it more expensive to import stock and the fact that they have had to expand the size of its supply team to deal with additional administration costs and duties associated with Britain’s exit from the Customs Union. I suspect that many other retailers are having the same problems.
AW, Gosforth