The myth that 60% of our trade goes to the EU is based on the Rotterdam Effect.
There are SIX huge trans-shipment ports in the EU where goods destined for non-EU markets are logged as exports to the EU before being loaded onto larger vessels that set off on their journeys to the Rest of the World.
ROTTERDAM
HAMBURG
ANTWERP
SINES GIOIA
TAURO
ALGECIRAS
A UK company has a large export order for Brazil and it is sent in a shipping container. If that ship happens to call at Rotterdam to pick up more containers for Brazil then that is counted as a UK export to the EU. However it did go to the EU even though it was only passing through.
Maybe only 20% of our exports are to the EU. Imports from the EU are about £50 billion a year more than our exports to the EU. Our best export customer is the USA.
The 3 million job loss is a phoney threat. The Eu would keep trading with us as they sell some £50 billion a year more to us than we sell to them. We would pick up far more jobs from Free Trading with the Commonwealth and the rest of the world
However since Brexit
Change in UK goods exports to Top 10 EU economies in the 12 months to Sep 2022 compared to previous period:
Germany +6.6%
France +28.3%
Italy +0.7%
Spain +14.3%
NL +46.0%
Poland +27.1%
Sweden +42.0%
Belgium +30.0%
Ireland +32.3%
Austria +15.9%
Change in UK goods exports to Top 10 EU economies in the 12 months to Sep 2022 compared to previous period:
- Germany +6.6%
- France +28.3%
- Italy +0.7%
- Spain +14.3%
- NL +46.0%
- Poland +27.1%
- Sweden +42.0%
- Belgium +30.0%
- Ireland +32.3%
- Austria +15.9%
This is the argument I have been trying to put forward ever since we first applied to join the EU. Why give up our links with our Commonwealth friends to join an insular Trade society. It would have been, and can still be, a much better idea to form a common trading society with the Commonwealth which would give us (and them) a much bigger hand to play in forming trading relations with all the much smaller trading communities (and I don’t think there would be any bigger ones, not even the USA or China) and the EU would be begging to trade with us.