The government wrongly says an EU re set will give us more economic growth. They think they can get non tariff barriers to trade in goods eased to promote more activity. Let’s look at the basic arithmetic.
In 2024 the UK imported 1.7 times as much as it exported in goods to the EU, running a large deficit. If they could get barriers eased so that they could expand trade by 10% both ways, our goods exports would go up by £17.7 bn and our goods imports by ££30 bn . GDP figures add in exports as that is activity and value added created in the UK. Imports subtract where we close UK production to buy from activity abroad. So with a symmetric 10% increase in goods trade GDP would be reduced . The UK would need to find ways of creating or keeping barriers against imports to help growth from the EU trade route.
To keep GDP constant the UK would need to increase its goods exports by 70% more than its imports, given the much lower base of exports in our trade. So if imports rose 5% we would need to grow exports by 8.5% just to stand still.
In practice it is difficult to see how the UK will get non tariff barriers or border bureaucracy so reduced that it will achieve a measurable increase in trade. A few easings for meat and dairy helps a tiny sector of our exports. Meanwhile our past leading exports to the EU include diesel and petrol cars, about to be banned in UK, oil and gas, put into accelerated rundown by Mr Miliband, and refined oil products where we have just shut one third of our refineries.
Exporting more goods to the EU is not going to be a source of more growth for the economy on current government policies.
If the relatively small admin costs of exports to the EU are such a big worry the government could give every exporting company a subsidy to cover them. The cost would be less than 10 % of the money the UK is likely to give the EU each year for this alleged benefit.
May 12, 2026
Once again you’re using a logical argument which has no merit with the government.
Starmer will get his way and tie us to the rotting corpse of the EU because that’s what he wants.
No amount of evidence will change their minds as with net zero ideology trumps common sense.
May 12, 2026
+1 with a cavate.
It is not TTK that is driving this. ‘Others’ are 😉 see my comment below.
May 12, 2026
Indeed, lefties work on irrational emotion not logic. Amazing how many Labour politicians joined the party at 15 or 16 a bit like many religions their young immature minds are often indoctrinated for life and then never mature at all. Should this perhaps not be considered a form of child abuse.
It seems younger women are the heaviest supporters of the Green Party now ( facing allegations of ed)Anti-Semitism.
JR is surely right in what he says above but reason and logic butter no parsnips with Labour. As we see with border controls, net zero, vat on school fees, the EU, over the top red tape, landlord laws, employment laws, the NHS fiasco…
May 12, 2026
@Ian Wragg – +1
Some that hate the UK and its people with a passion have wormed their way into a position to be maliciously destructive
May 12, 2026
But does our EU bound Prime Minister or any of the duds about to replace him know this? Does anyone in our useless civil service know this? The Commissars of the EU must be laughing up their sleeves.
May 12, 2026
@Stred – of course they don’t. The labour leader is only in position at the behest of the parliamentary group who chose him. In the UK we don’t vote for our leadership it is foisted on us
May 12, 2026
We vote for our leadership.
May 12, 2026
The pro-EU ideologues don’t “do” arithmetic. They also don’t “do” democracy, just like the rest of the EU Authoritarians.
They are desperately trying to save THEIR jobs/careers and will sacrifice whole industries and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of British people in order to do it.
May 12, 2026
@Donna. +1.
May 12, 2026
@Donna +1
May 12, 2026
Good Morning,
Doing more political deals with the EU will not benefit our economic condition. The EU is not competitive, look at the Mario Draghi report. Starmer and the EU cadres are ideological socialists; always more regulation and state control is the answer to any problem.
Fortunately for the UK, we might just manage to throw off this second millstone of catastrophic national management. The Labour Party looks like it is emulating it’s predecessor in effecting its own destruction. Change is coming, we’re in for some ‘interesting times’.
May 12, 2026
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz just called the EU a “complete failure” stating, “Germany & Europe have wasted incredible potential. We have become the world champion of over-regulation & zero growth.”
May 12, 2026
Perhaps Reeves should be replaced by an A-level economics student.
May 12, 2026
Rachel has barely been mentioned in the current thrust of Labour MPs opposing Keir Starmer, but as she and he are bonded at the hip in mutual loyalty they are prone to end up together in the political broken boneyard.
May 12, 2026
@Peter Gardner – more cynically ‘AI’
Don’t loose site that her directions, actions are first agreed by her boss 2TK, then by those with the collectively responsibility of Cabinet and finally approved by a UK Parliament that holds he to account. She is just their mouth piece the all own her output
May 12, 2026
‘they all own her output’. ‘that holds her to account’ – brain and predictive text are not in unison as always
May 12, 2026
I hope you know you can disable the predictive text.
Look at the web to see how to do it on mobile phones, tablets or computers.
On an iPhone go to Settings/General/Keyboard
once there turn Predictive to Off.
May 12, 2026
Meanwhile our past leading exports to the EU include diesel and petrol cars, about to be banned in UK, oil and gas, put into accelerated rundown by Mr Miliband,
That basically was the bargaining chip Boris had in is locker for exerting the dreaded EU, but don’t worry people there is a light at the end of the tunnel
Starmer’s premiership in freefall as Home and Foreign Secretaries ‘both tell him to quit’: Beleaguered PM must face his mutinous Cabinet today after delegation of ministers went to No10 following his disastrous reset speech to say his time is up , so hopefully this useless PM is soon to be consign to the history books as the worst PM and party to have tried to run our great country, but then being the crafty lawyer he is what’s the bets he threatens his MPs with a General Election if he’s chucked out of office, Just Saying
May 12, 2026
SJR presents a clear explanation of why the government’s claims are baseless and wrong, why Starmer should be out of office, and why he is fundamentally daft.
May 12, 2026
Realigning with the EU which is the Labour Party’s stated policy, is a direct confrontation with the wishes of the voters in the UK.
When we remember only 20.4% of the electorate voted for the Labour Party at the last election, the question needs to be raised as to where does the Labour Party think they have a mandate to reverse the largest democratic decision ever taken by the UK electorate when we voted to leave the EU?
The economic case offered up is both false and dismisses the political will of the Nation.
Who exactly is promoting this anti democratic re-join the EU policy, the increasingly left wing side of politics is advancing?
May 12, 2026
@Rod Evans – lets be fair. May started the rot by refusing the wishes of the electorate to leave the EU. It has since then been compounded by each Parliament, all refusing to leave. They have all had the option and with a mandate from the people to change the direction of their predecessors – they have all ‘refused’
May 12, 2026
Agree completely Ian.
May 12, 2026
I see that in some councils the labour party and the conservatives are going into coalition to keep reform out. If they wanted to make the people hate them anymore this is it.
May 12, 2026
@iain gill – if that turns out to be true, it just confirms everyone’s view of the so-called ‘core’ parties
May 12, 2026
Dogma and the need to do something.
This is why the majority of political appointments and certainly SPADs should be reduced.
May 12, 2026
Excellent My Lord. Now find a way to get our mass media to publicise this fact and to persuade half the population that the advantages of rejoining the EU are illusory and that we would be worse off if we did it, because they are all pushing the opposite narrative currently.
May 12, 2026
You are not going to rejoin the EU they wouldn’t touch you with a 40 foot barge please just too much trouble so pipe down – alignment is also out of the question – what you see us what you get.
May 12, 2026
I like your idea about a subsidy for exporters. How about an exemption for manufacturing companies from employer’s NI?
May 12, 2026
“UK would need to increase its goods exports” as we know the EU is first a political entity, a United States of Europe without democracy, then a protectionist racket. The Laws, Rules and Standards are greater and also remain greater on the UK than they are for any other Nation, unless the UK Parliament allows us to leave.
If the UK as intended by the wording on the ballot paper was to just leave, we would be on WTO terms as with the rest of the World as such be significantly in a better place. As Lord Redwood has suggested their trade to the UK is &)% greater that the other way around, the EU needs the UK Market.
Trade within, just within, the UK would not then be curtailed by the diktats of the unelected unaccountable elsewhere. Cost within the UK would be derived by democratic means from within the UK. There is no downside to be able to leave the EU as the rest of the World demonstrates. Although that means our own elected MPs would have to start working, engage with their electorate, work with their electorate, the luxuries their freeloading life currently doesn’t have to thinks about
May 12, 2026
The EU needs the UK market … yes, just like the UK needs the Isle of Man market
May 12, 2026
So why were they so upset when we left? All the threats, all the stamping and crying?
May 12, 2026
Well at the time it was more ‘good riddance’ than ‘all stamping and crying’. Then it seems that the EU27 governments kept a steady and unified position:
‘Drivers of consensus: Responses to Brexit in Germany, France, Ireland and Poland‘, 10/01/2023, P.Taggart et al., German Politics, 33, 688-712,
doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2022.2159943.
Also on tandfonline.com
It is a big paper, reading the intro and conclusion will give the gist of it.
May 12, 2026
Lynn.. No it’s all in your mind – most Europeans are too busy with their lives to be concerned but if asked whether Britain should rejoin most would say no they would bring too much trouble
May 12, 2026
‘trade to the UK is 70% greater’ not working to well today
May 12, 2026
Yes but the real purpose isn’t an attempt to raise gdp through these measures it’s part of project rejoin. Its a secret so there’s no announcement but I can reveal exclusively that the idea is: slide back into ‘alignment’ in one sector after another, buy ‘goodwill’ from the eu with money and any concessions they might want from the uk; once most sectors are ‘aligned’, formally rejoin the single market and customs union; once you’ve done that hold a new referendum to rejoin, as at that point we may as well. You read it here first.
May 12, 2026
Lawson tried that.
Shadowed the D’Mark secretly so he could provide proof of his theory.
Of course it proved the reverse, so I think shadowing alignment is OK.
When it fails we ditch it.
We don’t need any ‘agreement’ and ‘payment’ to shadow align.
May 12, 2026
Rejoining the EU is utter madness and shows the limited intelligence of the PM and Government.
Winston Churchill said,” If the UK has to choose between Europe and the World, it must choose the World!”
May 12, 2026
@Keith from Leeds – exactly. Isolation & decline.
May 12, 2026
For completeness you may also read Sir John’s comment on Vernon Bodganor’s Radio 4 talk on 19/08/2014 to have some other takes on WC’s views.
‘The BBC and Professor Bodganor misrepresent Churchill’s views on the UK and Europe’.
As an aside there might be some good laugh to be had when reading some of our distinguished contributors of 12 years ago some still at it today.
May 12, 2026
Oh we don’t need to delve into the archive for laughs Hefner. You provoke laughter whenever you post.
May 12, 2026
“High energy costs driven by green levies have left Britain £30bn poorer, experts have said.
EY said the economy was £30bn smaller than it otherwise would have been after a surge in power costs crippled the UK’s energy-intensive industries, such as cement, steel, glass and ceramics.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/05/12/high-energy-costs-leave-britain-30bn-poorer/
This UK Parliament led by Labour and Starmer ‘owns’ the destruction of the UK and now with wanting to hand more of the control of the country and our money to the EU – they are determined to finish the job!
May 12, 2026
Sir John I think this arithmetic is above ‘0’ level capabilities.
If you want to communicate with those in charge of the country rather than we bumpkins who produce the wealth, you need to simplify substantially.
Let’s start with Janet and John…
John is bigger than Janet and bullies her into sticking to his rules. Else he will not buy from her soda stand.
John buys a soda from Janet for £1. It cost Janet £1.25 because the lemons had to be imported from Italy and cost 12p each, rather than from Israel at 1p each.
Janet bought the sugar and water and cup from John too, so Janet has used up all her pocket money for the year £10.00 and can have no sweets from the corner shop.
Nobody else wants Janet’s John-soda.
May 12, 2026
A bit O/T: ‘Some basic arithmetic on growth’: I’m sorry but what is the proof or the reasoned argument that imports and exports always go up (or down) by the same percentage? What is the mechanism? as it appears quite contradictory with country A exchanging for example services with country B selling manufactured (or agricultural) products. The premiss of today’s comment looks very flimsy to me.