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16-05-2016 11:30 AM
Brexit will help us create jobs, say 300 top business chiefs: Leaders say Brussels red tape 'stifles every one of the UK's 5.4million companies'
- British exports value to EU has plummeted by a fifth over the past decade
- Leave campaigners said the figures proved the ‘failure’ of the single market
- Remain camp insists access to trading bloc was vital to economic success
The value of British exports to the EU has plummeted by a fifth over the past decade, an analysis has found.
Leave campaigners last night said the figures – from the EU’s own statistics arm – proved the ‘failure’ of the single market.
Exports to the EU fell almost 20 per cent from 2006 to 2015 – a worse performance than any member state apart from Luxembourg.
Former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, John Longworth, who was forced out over his pro-Brexit views, said: ‘There is no area of Britain’s EU membership that has over-promised and under-delivered quite as badly as the single market.
‘Instead of being the great engine of trade it was promoted as when it was launched in 1980s, it is now at best a mirage and at worst a source of stifling regulation that holds British businesses back at home and makes them less competitive in the world markets.
