Monday, 4 August 2014

For Wales, see London.

Boris Johnson attracted plenty of coverage over the weekend with his call for the Tories to be ready to take Britain out of the EU if Cameron fails to get what he wants in the renegotiation which he’s promised if he wins the next UK election.  London’s Mayor has based his call on a report produced by his chief economic advisor, Gerard Lyons.
The headline in some of the papers that this was an option for the UK was based on a quote from Lyons that
“The best economic scenario for Britain over the next 20 years is to be in a significantly reformed European Union.
"But if, as an alternative, the UK leaves the EU on good terms, while adopting sensible outward-looking trading policies, that comes a very close second.”
But the detail shown in all the reports relates only to London.  Take this as an example from the Independent:
“…the Lyons report predicts London’s GDP of £350 billion will grow to £640 billion by 2034 if EU reforms boost trade with growing markets in the rest of the world.
“But, growth up to £614 billion would still be achieved by the capital if Britain quit the EU to pursue its own outward-looking trade policies, the report concluded.
“Staying in an unreformed EU would see London’s GDP grow to just £495 billion over the same 20 year period, while leaving the EU but failing to adopt trade-friendly policies would limit growth to just £430 billion.”
At least the Western Mail’s headline was more honest – saying that the report showed that leaving the EU was a viable option for London.  But even the Western Mail doesn’t seem to have asked what ‘viable for London’ might mean for Wales.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quite right, for Wales, see London. There's more than enough people in Wales with English ties or roots to be interested in matters pertaining to the capital of the UK.

Indeed, sometimes I wonder if it is only these folk that have got the education to read and the wherewithal to afford such a newspaper in the first place.

If England leaves the EU fine, Wales can opt for independence and try to remain as an integral member. But don't forget, it is the EU that forces member states to accept free movement of people and the right to use their own language, something so loathed by so many of the pro independent nationalists in Wales.

Upon which side of this fence do you sit?

John Dixon said...

"There's more than enough people in Wales with English ties or roots to be interested in matters pertaining to the capital of the UK."

Yes, of course there are. But there's a big leap between being interested in such matters and accepting the idea that what's good for London is good for the UK, and that decisions should therefore be made on the basis of what suits London.

"...it is the EU that forces member states to accept free movement of people and the right to use their own language"

You speak as though the EU is some sort of external entity telling people what to do. But in fact it's a club whose decisions are made by the members, including the UK, although you wouldn't often believe that to listen to UK politicians. I doubt that there's a single member of the club that likes each and every rule agreed by the members; the decision that they all face is whether to accept the package on the basis that it's better than being outside the club.

And what's wrong with "free movement of people" anyway? Insofar as there is a problem of human migration (and that's another debate entirely), it's not allowing free movement which causes that problem, it's the inequality of opportunity which makes such movement attractive.