Any economic pain in the years ahead will be the fault of Brexiters

AS we move forward as an “independent, sovereign country” outside the European Union, it is worth reflecting on some basic facts:

1. The European Union (EU) is a club of countries with agreed rules and standards, and methods of arbitration in cases of dispute. It is a club, not a superstate.

2. 37.5% of all voters voted to leave the EU in June 2016. If a British Trades Union wants to call a strike, it has to have agreement from 40% of all its members. We left the EU on a lower threshold than a trades union needs to call a legal strike.

3. Only 26% of the population voted to leave. Almost 3/4 of the population didn’t vote to leave.

4. We were never asked if we wanted to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union. Brexiters lied and promised that we could leave “and stay in the Single Market”. Well you can, and be like Norway, but the PM has ruled this out, so he was lying then and is, in my opinion, a serial liar.

5. We were told it would be easy as chips to get new trade deals and that the world would be queuing up to sign deals with us. We haven’t yet signed a single deal. China and India are major economic powers and we have a dodgy history with them (they don’t forget the wars, deaths and conquest .... ) and their key strategic markets are closed to us.

6. The regional imbalances we have in the UK have existed for decades – since the 1960s, well before we joined the Common market, people have been writing about regional disparities. The NorthSouth divide is not the EU’s fault. Nor was the 2008 economic crash and austerity the EU’s fault.

7. After we joined in 1973, our economic performance improved. We had been known as “the sick man of Europe”. Then we got better. Coincidence? We grew quickly after the Single Market came in.

8. The 1992 Single Market was in large part a result of Conservative British politicians – irony of ironies there! It has been a great success.

9. All of the net jobs growth since 1992 according to The Economist has been in services. Bristol is strong in services. Smaller northern cities are not. Services are crucial.

10. In 1960, 40% of jobs in Liverpool were in manufacturing. Now it’s 10%. Those old factory jobs have long gone to Asia and cheaper places. Trump failed to bring back factory jobs to the USA and so will Johnson. The old factory jobs are gone. The future is in services and in hi-tech.

If there is economic pain in the years ahead, it will be the fault of the Brexiters and their repeated lies. Paul Roberts Bristol