No Deal Brexit is the best deal for Britain as we can lead the world without fear — but Project Fear still keep bombarding us with disaster
EVERY day we are bombarded with claims that a No Deal Brexit would spell disaster.
But those predicting doom are talking our country into a crisis that is no more real than the one we were told would happen the day after we voted Leave.
What we are not being told by the harbingers of doom is that inward investment into the UK in the first half of 2018 was the second highest in the world after China, but ahead of the US and Germany.
We are not told that 94 per cent of businesses in this country are not trading in Europe.
Only five per cent of GDP is involved in cross-border trade in goods with EU countries and only 12 per cent overall if you include services.
The majority of our trade is with the rest of the world. And as this carries on day in, day out, we see no nightmare queues of lorries backed up at our ports.
In fact, there is no friction at all at the borders even though much of the “just in time” delivery we depend on comes from outside the European Union.
We are not told the Civil Service is ready and prepared to handle a No Deal Brexit. This plan is being withheld from MPs and the British people in order to push Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement, which could bind us to EU control indefinitely.
Make no mistake, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs are ready for a No Deal Brexit. All computer systems will be ready by January 19 and businesses have been advised about “Trusted Trader Schemes” to keep trade flowing.
The EU has announced plans for visa-free travel and aviation rights.
The French have installed high-tech scanners at Calais to keep both trade and tourism flowing.
Friendly “Open Skies” agreements have been signed with our most important partners outside the EU — the US and Canada. We have agreed transitional trade agreements with Switzerland.
There is so much to be optimistic about.
As for our trade with the EU, that will not stop even if extra tariffs are slapped on our exports.
The EU has a trade surplus of £95billion with the UK.
In 2017, European countries sold £341billion-worth of goods to us — that’s a lot of cars, food and wine they want to go on selling us.
It is strongly in Europe’s interests to cut a deal.
There are so many advantages of a No Deal Brexit. Number one, we keep our £39billion — the cost of Theresa May’s deal. That is taxpayers’ money that can be used to boost British businesses.
We will be free to enter into new trade deals. We are the fifth largest economy in the world. The suggestion that we are too small to cut trade deals is nonsense.
Australia, a much smaller economy than ours, negotiated deals with China, South Korea and Japan in just 18 months.
Iceland has an agreement with China and its economy is tiny compared to ours. We would be free to run our economy as we wish, slashing red tape and burdensome regulation.
Our friendships across the world with Commonwealth and other English-speaking countries can be re-energised. We have nothing to fear.
The risks of staying in the EU, by contrast, are great.
The EU has not been an economic success. Its love affair with bureaucracy and heavy taxation hold it back.
Its growth rates since the financial crisis have been much lower than ours. Levels of unemployment are so high in some EU countries, no wonder young people there come to the UK where, at four per cent, we have the lowest level of unemployment for 40 years.
As a hotelier, I can say without exception, it is much more difficult to do business in Europe than it is in the UK.
The EU’s high corporate taxes, complex labour laws and tricky legal system make Britain’s low taxes and fair laws very appealing.
There are so many reasons to be cheerful about our future outside the European Union.
But Remainers are not able to provide any positive arguments for staying in.
That is why they scaremonger with Project Fear. They won’t listen to the British people.
They want to reverse the result of the referendum by almost any means.
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No one should believe their blinkered view and this country should not be held hostage by it.
Britain has always been a world leader. We should not doubt that we always will be.
A No Deal Brexit is the only way of ending the uncertainty and allowing us to get on with our lives as a successful, independent nation.
- Sir Rocco Forte is chairman and chief executive of Rocco Forte Hotels.