GEORGE Osborne has calculated that leaving the EU would cost us all around £4,300 per annum in extra taxation and losses incurred by no longer being ‘in the club’.
Professor of Economics Patrick Minford has also been looking to see the effects of leaving the EU.
Professor Minford, in his book Should Britain leave the EU?, published by the highly respected Institute of Economic Affairs, takes into account things only possible outside of the EU, such as reduced regulation, lower energy prices, removing the Common External Tariff and setting up our own trade deals around the world (currently prohibited by the Treaty of Rome). None of these appear to have been considered by Mr Osborne. Minford calculates that the true economic benefit to the UK of leaving the EU is that we would be better off by £9,200 per household per year.
The question is “Who do you believe”? Professor Minford and the Institute of Economic Affairs, or George Osborne, the man who had to admit he had got his 2016 budget wrong and had to rewrite an important part of it a few days later? I know where I would put my money.
TONY MOLLAND
Former chairman
Devizes Constituency UKIP Association
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