Rejoiners are massing for a march on Parliament, but do they know what they want to rejoin?
This report has been co-published with our affiliated organisation, Brexit Facts4EU.Org.
‘UK benefited least from our greatest achievement,’ says EU in last Single Market report
Official: The UK was ranked 28th out of 28 by EU Commission in 2020
With almost 50 Rejoiner groups massing for a march through London on Saturday 10 September (2022), we present the facts – direct from the EU Commission – of just how little the UK got from the EU’s flagship policy.
The EU Commission describes the Single Market as its “greatest achievement”. Every year it produces a scoreboard which ranks member countries in terms of how much they each benefit from this. In the last report before Brexit the United Kingdom benefited least, as it had done over many years.
The UK : The second-largest EU contributor, the last to get any benefit
All readers will remember how the EU’s Single Market was held up by the state-sponsored Remain Establishment as the jewel amongst the reasons why it was essential for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union.
Prime Minister David Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne, and all of “the Great and the Good” didn’t stop talking about it. Without being a member of the Single Market, the public was told, the UK was more or less finished.
Between 500,000-820,000 people would lose their jobs almost immediately, the UK economy would fall off a cliff, house prices would plummet, and the defence of the Realm would be in peril.
.
So, how did the UK actually do out of the EU’s Single Market, according to the EU itself?
We reviewed the last official EU ‘Single Market Scoreboard 2020’ before the United Kingdom finally left on 31 December 2020. Here is the EU Commission’s verdict.
“The UK has the lowest trade integration in the Single Market for goods and the third lowest trade integration for services.”
– Official EU Single Market Scoreboard, 2020 report
.
The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP gave his thoughts
“The more revealing figures show the UK’s growth rate fell after we joined the EEC and fell again once they completed the single market in 1992. That was why some of us campaigned to leave the Single Market as well as leaving the EU.
The Single Market was designed against us and promoted continental exports to us to replace our home production.”
– The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP
Summary
How the EU’s Single Market delivered nothing for the UK’s trade in GOODS
The chart shows the percentage of a country’s GDP represented by trade in goods with other EU countries (average of imports and exports). This is how the EU itself summarises the Single Market and trade.
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org – click to enlarge
The EU ranks its Single Market at the top of all its ‘greatest achievements’
It is important to be clear about the EU’s Single Market. It wasn’t a surprise that David Cameron, George Osborne, the BBC, and the rest of the Remain Establishment talked about the Single Market so much. The EU rates it as its ‘greatest achievement’.
As ever, we quote from the EU Commission itself:-
“EXECUTIVE SUMMARY”
“The Single Market ranks at the top among the greatest accomplishments of European integration. For over 25 years, it has been delivering growth, jobs, legal certainty to business, a wide choice of safe products to consumers and guaranteeing the free movement to EU citizens in the Member States. It is part of our daily life, interweaving the activities of businesses and consumers across borders.”
– EU Commission website
.
“Ah, but what about services?” cry the Remainer-Rejoiners. “This is the UK’s strength!”
We also analysed the EU’s figures on the benefits of the Single Market to each country in respect of the service economy.
Firstly, we must once again point out that the Single Market does not work for services – the UK’s strength – by the EU’s own admission.
“The Single Market – this jewel that is all too often taken for granted –
does not function properly for services”
– Elżbieta Bieńkowska, EU Commissioner for the Single Market, 2017
The UK got almost as little benefit from its strength in services as in goods
Summary
How the EU’s Single Market delivered nothing for the UK’s trade in SERVICES
The chart shows the percentage of a country’s GDP represented by trade in services (financial and non-financial) with other EU countries (average of imports and exports). This is how the EU itself characterises this.
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org – click to enlarge
For the original version of this article, click here: https://facts4eu.org/news/2022_aug_eu_singular_failure