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Originally Posted by Chris
Damien, your claim that "People won't trade with us if they can trade with other EU member states at a lower cost." doesn't stack up, for a couple of major reasons. The first is that in a capitalist market, which, more or less, the world is, sellers in the market must find constant growth. Even if they sell into 'cheaper' markets first, the need for growth will drive them into 'expensive' ones also. The idea that the UK is suddenly going to be starved of consumer products is just silly.
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I am not saying they won't trade with us. I am saying that there is a risk that our imports and especially exports will be hit. Also 'less than half and dropping' is still a lot. Having 50% of our exports hit would be a major problem. Especially since the dropping part is also an assumption, if mainland Europe's economic situation improves and they start to see growth then they may again be an important market for us. One in which we'll have additional costs to sell into.
They may need us more than we need them at the moment but Europe as an entity will be bigger than us both in terms of consumers, spending, manufacturing and GDP.
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Following on from that, you're making a pretty huge assumption about the relative costs of selling goods within and outside of the European Union. The rules of the single market do not promote freedom and ease of access. For the most part, they merely use consumer freedom and protection as a smokescreen to disguise vested interests. The regulations make it costlier for importers to sell in EU markets. Getting some of those regulations off our statute book would give us a competitive advantage.
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Yes they are assumptions but so is the idea that we'll have a competitive advantage. My complaint is that all we ever here is the EU is a disaster and we'll clean up by being out of it. So I linked to one of the few papers to make a case for staying in the EU rather than getting out of it.