A Quick Reminder
The UK has been a union of countries for over 300 years. Very successfully too, with its own internal single market, open borders, currency union and customs union. Our union is home to 65 million people, all of whom share a common army, common health system and legal system amongst other things.
Yep…. the UK has been a successful union for many, many years, long before the European Union was ever thought of, before 2 world wars, the industrial revolution and more recently, the technical revolution. With all the turmoil, unrest and negativity in the world, our little union of 4 countries stands tall against the rest of other, far larger nations as the 5th biggest economy in the world and the leader in many, many areas such as agriculture, information technology, science and law. After inventing just about everything in the world and occupying a fair chunk of it, the UK continues to grow economically year on year, whilst still being best of friends of those countries it occupied and defended.
So here is a quick reminder …. we are already a common market, a single market, with a common currency, open borders, common legal system, central bank and political union.
We have been for around 300 years …. !
But .... we have a nett trade deficit with the European Union of around £64 Billion per year, yet, of all the 28 member states, we have the least integration with
its single market and therefore get the least benefit from it.
In return, we pay a net contribution of £11.2 billion for access to the EU single market, but the EU pays nothing for access for ours - the biggest single market for the EU outside the 27 !
We are a bigger export market from the EU than China - we are it’s second biggest importer in the world, however, it is not the UK that sets the standards for the goods we want to buy, it is the EU.
There are around 170+ countries in the world who are not in the single market, do not pay anything to the EU for access to it or are bound by its laws and standards.
How on earth did the UK allow itself to get dragged into this ?
Roll on January 31st 2020.