The EU needs the UK much more than we need them
THE name Hans-Olaf Henkel means little in Britain but as Brexit negotiations move into a critical phase his is a voice which deserves to be broadcast loud and clear. Henkel is a German MEP and former head of IBM in Europe who has just iterated what many German businesses fear but what for some reason EU leaders and British Remainers cannot bring themselves to contemplate. If Britain were to withdraw from the EU without a trade deal, Henkel said over the weekend, the biggest loser in the medium to long-term would not be Britain – it would be Germany.
Exports of German cars to Britain have already plunged by 20 per cent – as big a plunge, Henkel noted, as during the economic crisis of 2008/09.
Britain, he thinks, would suffer the most in the shortterm following a “no deal” Brexit but he believes we would have little trouble in signing new trade deals with countries outside Europe. Germany, though, would struggle to replace its third largest export market.
He repeated his accusation – which he first made in July – that the EU’s negotiating team has set out on a course of trying to punish Britain for daring to vote to leave the EU. As for the EU’s demands for an ever-higher divorce bill, it should stop trying to call Britain’s bluff and get on with negotiating a free trade deal between Britain and the EU.
HENKEL is no leaver himself. On the contrary, not only does he want Germany to stay in the EU, he would rather Britain stayed, too. But if the EU’s leaders want it to survive they would do well to take notice of his home truths.
So, too, should British Remainers who seem to have swallowed whole the EU’s propaganda. To listen to EU negotiator Michel Barnier or his cheerleaders in Britain, you would think that free trade was some kind of privilege that the EU is prepared, out of its kindness, to grant the British people as long as we first agree to pay
The reality is that if a trade deal happens between Britain and the EU – and hopefully it will – it will do so because it is