EU Membership worth £92bn a year to the UK, equivalent to £3300 per household.

In a tweet exchange this figure was quoted to me by an EU bod (personal tweet account...).

He gave me this link to support that claim:-
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/international-trade-investment-and-development/docs/u/11-719-uk-and-single-market

I kicked the tyres... and they fell off...

Just the quick headline nonsense noted here.

In the Summary it says:-

EU countries currently trade twice as much with each other as
they would do in the absence of the Single Market. As a result, the Single
Market may be responsible for income gains in the UK between 2% and 6%,
that is between £1100 and £3300 a year per British household.

In section 2  it says:-

EU countries trade nowadays twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the Single Market. Given that, according to the OECD, a 10 percentage point increase in trade exposure is associated with a 4 per cent rise in income per capita, increased trade with Europe since the early 80s (around +15 percentage points) may be responsible for around 6% higher income per capita in the UK. This represents £3,300 a year per British household.

Problem is...

If the single market (established in the '80s) doubles the trade we do with the EU (an increase of 100%) - how come it has only increased by 15%?

This alone makes the document worthless nonsense(!). This is a document that  people are quoting and citing this to support our continued membership! Is there any reason to think any other data they are using is any better? No... not really...

I also can't help noticing that this £1100-£3300 per houshold - of course it doesn't go to households, it goes to Fat Euro Cats, but even if it did - would just about cover the increase in our fuel bills caused by the EU's very own Green Tax!

So even on their own best figures, the gross benefit of EU membership is entirely wiped out by their own green energy tax - every other cost of EU membership is a direct cost and drain on the wealth we in the UK create.

First published at: http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/eu-membership-worth-92bn-year-to-uk.html