Households will be £40 a week richer post-Brexit as UK imports tariff-free goods and increases output, experts claim
Britain’s economy could enjoy a boost worth £135billion a year, report predicts
HOUSEHOLDS will be up to £40 a week better off once Britain has left the EU, top economists claimed.
The price of food and other products will tumble as we begin importing tariff-free goods from around the world.
National output will rise as we become an international trading nation – raising living standards, creating better-paid jobs and cutting unemployment.
Britain’s economy could enjoy a Brexit boost worth £135billion a year, according to a glowing assessment by a group of 16 leading economists.
They say there is mounting evidence that quitting Europe’s trade barriers will transform our prospects over the next decade.
We would also reap savings from cutting immigration, slashing EU red tape and halting contributions to Brussels.
Professor Patrick Minford, who helped draft the report, argued it is time to abandon the gloomy forecasts and embrace the new prosperity on the horizon.
He declared: “Project Fear failed yet many Remainers are trying to resurrect it.
“The government should embrace a clean, swift Brexit – avoid the uncertainty of a long, drawn out transition and embrace the opportunities of Brexit.”
Britain will enjoy a surge in national output once we leave and an eight per cent fall in prices, according to a 50-page report to be published in the autumn by Economists for Free Trade.
It would be worth the equivalent of £5,000 a year to the average UK family, it is claimed.
Savings in benefits currently paid to unskilled EU migrants would be enough to cut household bills by £2.50 a week.
The report challenges Chancellor Philip Hammond over his insistence that post-Brexit Britain would follow the EU’s high-tax, high-regulation economic model.
Prof Minford, of Cardiff University, said: “To do that would risk simply throwing away our hard-won freedom from EU rules that reduce our competitiveness as a nation.
“We would be throwing away the very gains from Brexit…if the EU does not like our new UK rules then it is free to adjust to them as it likes.”
He said a “hard” Brexit would be good for the UK economy, while a “soft” one would leave us as badly off as before.
Roger Bootle, chairman of Capital Economics, said: “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to raise living standards and create new employment opportunities across the country.
“On the basis of its record, the EU is likely to make cack-handed decisions about the issues of the future.”
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In a second study, it emerged that the EU will be hit twice as hard if it refuses to strike a free-trade deal with Britain.
If tariffs were imposed both sides, EU countries would be hit for £12billion to export goods to us – while tariffs on our goods would be just £6billion.
Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who compiled the report, said: “Everyone understands that the Europeans are very upset we are leaving their cosy club.
"We’re breaking up, but we can still be the best of friends.
“That’s why we made such a generous offer to the EU — an offer that will allow tariff-free trade to continue.
“Tariff free trade that the Europeans do better out of that we do.
"It would be an economically illiterate act of self-harm for the EU to reject our proposals and impose tariffs.”