We’re better off out

ANYONE who still doubts the economic wisdom of Brexit should study yesterday’s oh-so-revealing trade figures for 2015 from the Office for National Statistics.

For they confirm a long-running trend which has seen Britain become less and less reliant on the statist EU, as our exporters increasingly exploit more lucrative markets elsewhere.

Exports to our partners last year shrank to a paltry 12 per cent of our national output. Yet for the sake of this fraction of our economy, every British business has had to bear the full crushing weight of Brussels regulation. Indeed, with the UK a substantial net importer from the EU – Germany in particular – a picture emerges of a relationship that has progressively failed to deliver the economic benefits promised by starry-eyed europhiles.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund’s in-house watchdog has launched a lacerating attack on the organisation’s senior staff over the ‘calamitous’ misjudgements they made in pursuing their love affair with the euro, which has condemned Greece and much of the continent to economic sclerosis.

Yes, there may well be a temporary economic price to pay for the turbulence of reclaiming our independence. But the longterm prospects for the UK look ten times healthier than for those locked in the EU. IT makes sense for Theresa May’s incoming administration to take a cool look at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station before committing taxpayers to its eye-watering price-tag.

One word of warning. For well over 20 years, as old nuclear and coal-fired power stations have fallen due for decommissioning, this country has cried out for a coherent energy strategy.

So if Mrs May should reject Hinkley Point, it is imperative that she produces a realistic Plan B, ready for immediate action.

In Scotland, the SNP rush to unreliable renewables has put power supplies in genuine jeopardy.