The government has said that by 2040 the reset will bring benefits of £9 bn to our economy. That is just 0.3% of Gdp spread over 14 years, or 0.02% a year. Why bother?
In practice it will be a loss to the UK as this assessment of benefits leaves out the costs. There will be a financial contribution to the EU to pay for it. There is the surrender of our fish for another 12 years leaving us short of fishing revenue. There is the very expensive Erasmus scheme to help more EU students than UK students replacing the much better and much cheaper Turing scheme for UK students we currently enjoy .
Worst of all is the wish to sign us up to the very costly EU carbon trading scheme. This will put up the UK carbon tax which will speed the closure of more UK businesses relying on gas and on petrochemicals. Adopting a version of the carbon border tax will make our imports from non EU dearer, as it is an expensive tariff. What happened to the government’s focus on the cost of living?
Integrating our electricity industry more with the energy short continent will make us more dependent on expensive imports.
The SPS changes on food exports and imports are unlikely to simplify or reduce costs by much as we will be forced to adopt the EU schemes which requires extensive use of vets and certification in a very bureaucratic package. We also need good food safety rules.
The EU is anti innovation. Accepting their rules on farming and business could cut us off again from important new ideas and science being pioneered in the US.