BCN-21, 22 Pro-Brexit group predicts UK boom after EU departure

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Pro-Brexit group predicts UK boom after EU departure

LONDON, Sept 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A pro-Brexit group of Conservative
lawmakers predicted on Tuesday Britain will enjoy an economic boom if it
trades with the EU under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules after Brexit.

Eurosceptics in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tory party presented an
alternative plan to the government’s that envisions a clean break from the EU
bloc.

The question of how to engineer Britain’s departure without ruining its
economy in the process has torn apart the ruling party since the Brexit
referendum was passed in 2016.

Britain will formally leave the EU on March 29 even if no deal on the
divorce terms is reached.

A group calling itself the Economists for Free Trade presented the plan on
Tuesday, saying it was offering a “Clean Brexit — that is, a World Trade
Deal under WTO rules.”

The deal “would allow us to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union,
regain control over our borders, laws, and regulations, free ourselves from
the European Court of Justice, and have freedom to establish our own trading
relationships with the rest of the world,” the group said.

The WTO plan meets the demands of the most strident proponents of Britain
charting its own course in trade relations and wresting back legal levers of
power from Brussels.

The government is instead proposing a plan to continue trading in goods
with the EU under a “common rulebook” after Brexit to ensure frictionless
trade at the border.

Tuesday’s event included former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and
leading conservative Jacob Rees-Moog as well others whose views differ
sharply from those of most members of May’s cabinet.

Some economists question the wisdom of relying on the unwieldy 164-nation
World Trade Organization for defining a nation’s basic trade terms with its
closest partners.

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But the pro-Brexit group said WTO rules would help the UK economy expand
by an additional seven percent over the government’s current projections for
growth for the coming 15 years.

“The average household would gain around 8 percent, while the poorest
household will be 15 percent better off,” the report said.

“The Treasury will receive about 10 percent extra revenue — around o80
billion ($104 billion, 90 billion euros).”

The group said the benefits would come mostly from Britain signing new and
more advantageous free trade agreements.

The WTO “deal does not imply ‘walking away’ from the Brussels
negotiations, as there are other aspects of the new EU-UK relationship…
that need to be agreed,” the group said.

“A World Trade Deal only implies that there will not be an EU trade deal –
– not that there will be no deal on anything at all.”

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