Is rejoining the EU worth an estimated £40 billion a year?
The UK is outside the EU, its single market and its customs union. It trades with the EU under the 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said rejoining requires a referendum, and Labour's current commitments rule out the single market and customs union this parliament. Estimates of the cost of rejoining vary widely: a Bow Group report puts the gross contribution at £28bn-£41bn a year, with no rebate. The OBR puts the long-run Brexit hit to productivity at 4%, and some studies put it at 6-8% of GDP per person.
4 Opinions
No. The idea of paying to surrender our sovereignty and democratic self determination to foreign bureaucrats who at best actively act against UK interests is absurd. If the EU paid us I still wouldn’t sell our freedom so cheaply. Fortunately the majority of the country agree.
It's an expensive millstone, whose primary export is red tape. And we'd have to join the Euro.
It's a difficult one because if we're viewing this as "is the EU membership worth £40 billion a year?", then the answer is yes, the growth we'd get back would easily dwarf the membership fee. But that only holds if we get our old status back. If rejoining means Brussels forces us to adopt the Euro and join Schengen (which they would), then it’s an absolute no. The answer to "is it worth it to us" completely hinges on whether we have to give up our own currency and borders
We tried it their way. It was awful It has lost us as a country 100bn a year for 6 years It has been utterly toxic to us a nation. Polarized whole communities and let in the extreme right wing. Nobody's lives are objectively tangibly better because of it. Ditch this nonsense and rejoin