The Telegraph, April 1, Robert Tombs
Afavourite question that Remainers, with an air of triumph, ask people like me is: “What single practical benefit have we gained from Brexit?” Now that we are joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the world’s most dynamic economic grouping, the question is obsolete.
Brexit was never just about trade, but neither was it intended (to borrow another Remainer catchphrase) to make us poorer. The statistics speak for themselves. With British membership, the CPTPP may well now be bigger than the remaining EU, and it is certainly growing faster. So are our exports to it, which even before membership have reached £60 billion a year. And our imports will be cheaper.
But Remainers dislike the CPTPP as a barrier to reintegration into the EU, and so are either ignoring it (as the BBC did on Friday morning in its main news bulletin), searching for downsides, or merely dismissing it as economically negligible. But it is undeniably an opportunity of a kind the EU has long ceased to offer. And unlike the EU, the CPTPP has no ambition to statehood, legal sovereignty, or control of trade policy.
The EU is still a major partner – or rather, the six EU states with which we do significant trade are. After some post-Brexit disruption, levels of trade with them have largely recovered. Nevertheless, our exports to EU countries have been essentially stagnant for 20 years, and as a proportion of total exports have steadily dwindled.
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