Should Britain pull out of the EU?

Membership of the European Union has long been a thorny political issue. Now, once again are pushing for Britain to change its relationship with the rest of Europe. But does leaving the EU make any sense? Simon Wilson investigates.

What does the EU cost us?

Over the past decade, there have been various attempts by economists to quantify the costs and benefits of EU membership. Their conclusions have differed greatly. In the mid-2000s, a study sponsored by Civitas, the right-leaning think tank, found that the costs of membership amounted to a loss of 4% of Britain's gross domestic product (GDP). Professor Patrick Minford of Cardiff University, a strong eurosceptic, came to a similar conclusion in his book Should Britain Leave The EU? Minford found "unacceptably high" ongoing costs of EU membership of between 3.2% to 3.7% of GDP. His conclusion, based on the assumption that the EU would impose the same trade barriers on Britain that it levies on non-members, is that "the UK would be considerably better off" leaving.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.