EU REFERENDUM
- WHAT DOES BREXIT
LOOK LIKE?

Former Cabinet Minister and member of the Vote Leave team, Rt Hon John Redwood MP tells us what Brexit looks like. "We have never suggested it looks like the Norwegian or the Swiss model."

1. Brexit means taking control of our own money and spending it on our own priorities. It means offering a Brexit budget to banish austerity, spending £10bn more on what matters to us. It means an immediate and substantial improvement in the UK balance of payments as our contributions to the EU end.
2. Brexit means taking control of our borders, so we decide how many people to invite in to our country. It means a fair migration policy offering the same opportunities to people from the rest of the world as from the rest of Europe. It means inviting in students to study, welcoming skilled and talented people into jobs where we need them, accepting entrepreneurs and investors who want to create jobs and own assets in the UK.
3. And as Lord Rose, Chairman of 'Remain', has said it means higher wages, as we cut the flows of EU migrants into low paid jobs.
4. Brexit means setting the taxes we want to impose. It means we can keep the corporate taxes we raise from big business, instead of losing £7bn every five years from European Court judgements making us send money back to those rich companies. It means we can abolish VAT on domestic fuel to tackle fuel poverty, scrap the hated tampon tax and take VAT off green products and insulation materials.
5. Brexit means restoring the UK’s influence in the world, as we regain our vote and voice on world bodies which the EU has taken from us. We will be able to negotiate our own free trade agreements with the fast-growing economies of the world.
6. And Brexit means continuing to trade with the rest of the EU as we do today. As Lord Rose of the 'Remain' campaign has said, after Brexit little on trade and business matters will change. The rest of the EU does not wish to sell us less and they realise they cannot impose new barriers to a profitable trade.
7. Brexit means a more prosperous, freer, more influential UK. Referendum Day can be Independence Day: the day we restore our democracy.

[ Source: Adapted by special permission of the Rt Hon John Redwood MP. John Redwood's Diary. ]

Can the UK really thrive outside the EU ?

1. It’s true, we really do have the world’s fifth largest economy, according to the UN, the IMF, The World Bank and the CIA). All four countries with larger GDPs have very much larger populations..

2. On the World stage the UK occupies a unique position :  We have a permanent seat on the Security Council, the G7, the G10 and the G20. We are also the leading country in the Commonwealth which dwarfs the EU with 2.4 billion citizens, GDP of over US$ 10 Trillion and a rapidly growing economy.

3. The UK has one of the five most formidable Diplomatic Services in the World. Absolutely no need of the EU’s fledgling “External Action Service.”

4. The British military has the 5th greatest combined conventional fire power of any nation. Behind only the US, Russia, China and India. Even the smallest of those countries, Russia, has a population double that of the UK.

5. Finally, on the basis of current population, the UK is within the top 10% of countries. (The UK is the 21st most populous state out of 233.)

[Sources: UN, IMF, World Bank, CIA World Handbook, Globalfirepower.com, Geohive.com. ]