(selective cut and paste, obviously not my work)
The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2014 there was a trade deficit of over £50bn, with a current account deficit of nearly £100 billion. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself.
– Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU.
– World Trade Organization (WTO) rules lay down basic rules for international trade by which both the EU and UK are obliged to abide.
-The EU has free trade agreements with over 50 countries to overcome such tariffs, and is currently negotiating a number of other agreements.
-EU now exempts services and many goods from duties anyway. In 2009 UK charged customs duty of just 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that the EU Common Market is basically redundant as a customs union with tariff walls.
-The EU is not the place where most economic growth is occurring. The EU’s share of world GDP is forecast to decline to 22% in 2025, down from 37% in 1973.
-Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does; this suggests that EU membership is not a prerequisite for a healthy trading relationship.
-Furthermore, Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not within the EU, but outside, i.e. with countries such as the USA and Switzerland.
-The largest investor in the UK is not even an EU country, but the US.
Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year.
Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.