Economic woes set to worsen

Sir, – The UK currently faces the deepest economic crisis since the war.

Britain’s economic growth rate over the past 12 months is half its average over the previous 25 years. Investment is stagnating. Mortgage approvals in March slumped by almost 21%. Car output for the domestic market has dropped in the same month by 13%, for export by 12%

If there had not been a world boom over the last two years, it is clear that the UK would be hovering on the brink of a recession; indeed, as the world economy falters in the months ahead, there is now a real prospect of just that.

It’s true that unemployment is hearteningly low, but unemployment is a lagging indicator – it reflects what economic conditions were 12 months ago. Since the financial crisis, real wages have fallen by 10% and over the last generation, the UK has become the global leader in creating low-paid, lowskill, casualised work.

Britain is the lynchpin of the world’s greatest

free trade area: the 27 member states of the EU, another 31 countries with whom free trade agreements are signed and operational, and another 30 with provisional deals about to be put in place. There is not a hope that Britain can reproduce this on its own.

Figures released by the OECD last week show inward investment into Britain slumped by $181bn over the last year; while outward investment has boomed by $120bn. This is one of the biggest one-year turnarounds by any country ever recorded.

The growth model on which we have relied – inward investment booming because Britain is the heart of the world’s greatest free-trade area, married to emergent strengths in high technology dependent on access to that market – is being shattered.

The Treasury’s prereferendum warnings about Brexit are suddenly looking more relevant. By leaving the EU, the largest single market in the world, we are committing nothing short of economic suicide. My only hope is that people will wake up in time to realise this. Alex Orr. Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.