EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK
Debate between Seamus Logan and Pete Wishart(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Pete Wishart
This hon. Member more than agrees with the hon. Lady and thoroughly endorses what she says. It is not just Ynys Môn or Wales; every part of this United Kingdom has been impacted and hurt by this crazy project.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a humorous speech about bananas and sausages that is making me hungry. Yesterday, the new Prime Minister spoke of wrong turns going back as far as the 1980s. There is a wrong turn he could do something about, because the EU reset that the previous Prime Minister promised was a disaster. He gave away 12 years’ access to our waters in Scotland in return for very little. In fact, when the coastal and fishing growth fund was disbursed, there was a pittance for Scotland. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if the Prime Minister is serious about undoing wrong turns, he should have the courage to do something about Brexit?
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he brings us right up to date in the debate about Brexit. I listened carefully to the Prime Minister yesterday and what he had to say about European Union membership. I want to come on to that because we are at an important juncture. We have new opportunities to go forward, and I hope that this new Labour UK Government make the right choice. I will come to that, so I ask my hon. Friend for his patience, which I know he will be able to supply me with.
I want to get back to the economics. It is now estimated that GDP is anything between 2% and 8% lower than if we had remained in the European Union. The Office for Budget Responsibility suggests a 4% reduction in productivity, and Goldman Sachs estimates that the UK economy is around 6% smaller than it would otherwise have been. I want to be clear: that does not mean that Britain suddenly became 8% poorer on the morning of 24 June 2016. Of course, Britain continued to grow, and we have experienced some economic growth. The argument is that the UK has grown less than it otherwise would have done. Brexit was never going to be a spectacular economic crash. If anything, it is more insidious than that. Brexit is more akin to a slow puncture. The economy keeps growing, the car keeps moving forward, but the driving gets tougher as we negotiate in a harsher environment.