CBI’s claims on benefits of staying in EU are misleading

REPRESENTATIVES of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) have recently supported Britain’s continued membership of the European Union advising of the folly of a referendum vote which could result in Britain leaving the EU.

Claims of impending disaster for our exports, if we exit, are repeatedly made by those businesses currently trading with Europe which seems to add weight to the famous quote of Mandy Rice Davies “Well, they would, wouldn’t they”.

Many businesses have, however, not been able to express their opinions for they are the ones who have had their work taken over by Europe and are no longer trading, but this never appears to be taken into account and is never published.

A witness in court has to take an oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, but it seems the CBI follows the same path as “renewable energy supporters” and doesn’t tell the “whole truth”, which results in the presentation of a totally misleading picture.

The CBI, amongst others, produces statistics to claim over four million of our jobs and 40 per cent of our exports are a result of our trade with Europe. It would be highly damaging, they continue, to exit such a huge and beneficial market. Phew, if such a situation actually exists we, obviously, would be mad to leave such a beneficial club.

But Britain has a huge trade deficit with Europe. We import far more goods from Europe than they buy from us. Does the CBI believe this is to Britain’s advantage? You, surely, don’t have to be an Einstein to understand that if Europe sells us far more goods than it buys from us, then Europe must, instead, have taken many, many of the jobs which were previously done by Britain’s workers.

It is European businesses, not Britain’s businesses, who have benefited from Britain’s membership of the EU, and consequently our workers have suffered and our businesses have contracted in numbers. Why is such a false picture of our so-called trading benefits always made, which, to me, suggests these are simply the views of those with a vested interest in presenting such patently wrong statistics?

However, irrespective of whether Britain is, or is not, a member of the EU, our present trading with them would not be adversely affected. The imbalance of trade in favour of the EU, means they are not in any position to impose any restrictions upon us as this would only result in them, not Britain, being disadvantaged.