Top German boss: We mustn’t block UK trade

GERMANY’S leading industrialist yesterday dismissed warnings of a post-Brexit trade war, saying the EU would be ‘very, very foolish’ to impose tariffs on the UK.

David Cameron and George Osborne have repeatedly issued doom-laden warnings that British exporters will face a wall of tariffs if Britain leaves the EU, potentially costing jobs.

But Markus Kerber, head of the influential BDI which represents German industry, said that made no sense. Mr Kerber told the BBC’s World Service: ‘Imposing trade barriers, imposing protectionist measures between our two countries – or between the two political centres, the EU on the one hand and the UK on the other – would be a very, very foolish thing in the 21st Century.

‘The BDI would urge politicians on both sides to come up with a trade regime that enables us to uphold and maintain the levels of trade we have.’

Boris Johnson welcomed the intervention, saying it was clear that EU trade partners would be ‘desperate’ for a deal with Britain. The former London Mayor told a BBC debate on Tuesday night that EU countries would be ‘insane’ to erect trade barriers against the UK if it pulled out of the EU, as they sell far more to us than we do to them.

Responding to Mr Kerber’s comments yesterday, Mr Johnson said: ‘ After the incessant doommongering of the In campaign, we now hear the truth from the “voice of German industry” – they would be desperate for free trade after we vote Leave. They would be damaging their own commercial interests if they didn’t. That’s why EU politicians would be banging down the door for a trade deal on Friday.’

The assumption that British firms would face tariff barriers has been central to a series of lurid warnings from the Treasury and other bodies that leaving the EU would damage the economy. But Britain’s trade deficit with the EU – the difference between goods imported and exported – hit a record £23.9billion in the first three months of this year, suggesting EU firms would suffer massively in any trade war.

Former Tory Cabinet minister John Redwood said: ‘They know they sell twice as many goods to us as we do to them. Who is going to want to wreck that?’

One of Britain’s leading entrepreneurs, Sir James Dyson, warned that remaining in the EU ‘would be an act of national self-harm’.