The thoughts of our first two contributors

The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP

1. What are the great Brexit Britain wealth opportunities?

Brexit teems with opportunities for the UK once we have properly left behind their rules, laws and budgets. We can spend the money we save on our own priorities. We can negotiate free trade agreements with the rest of the world. We can organise our public purchasing to give us good value and to supply more of the goods and services from domestic reliable sources. We regain our own seat , vote and voice on international bodies, where we can be a powerful influence for freer trade and more democracy. We can rebuild our fishing and farming industries with rules and government help that assist local talent and husband local resources.

2. How should we take advantage of them?

We should celebrate the ending of financial contributions to their budget. We will avoid a near £100 billion commitment under their planned pandemic recovery borrowings. We should invest more in better public services at home freed of these financial burdens abroad. We should speed our free trade and other partnership discussions with Australia, New Zealand. Japan, the USA and other willing countries. We should set out new fishing, farming and public procurement policies that give us greater national resilience, good value for money, and a bigger home supplying base. We should aim for self sufficiency in energy, greater self sufficiency in food, timber and fish.

3. If the EU continue to be unreasonable in the trade talks, should we revoke the WA and walk? If so, when?

The UK has generously offered a tariff free Free Trade Agreement to the EU, though it will help them more than us. If they do not want it or seek to get some price from us for it we should simply leave their single market and customs union and trade with them on WTO terms, under an import tariff schedule that makes sense for us. We should not sacrifice our fish, our right to make our own laws, or our ability to settle trade with the rest of the world to accommodate any unreasonable demands they might make. There must be no further delay after 31 December, as Brexit is already two and half years late. Controlling our borders and implementing the new trading system is not difficult, as we already run a tariff based customs system for non EU trade at every border point.

4. Contemplating our 31 December exit from the EU, what do you want from the Government?

I want the government to be sensibly optimistic and to demonstrate how we can be better off out. It needs exciting new policies for everything from fish to energy, from data to public purchasing, to show we can do things better. January 1 2021 is a great new beginning. It is above all the full restoration of independence. The right to govern ourselves means we will be better governed. Were a future government to disappoint we will change it as the power rests in the hands of voters. The problem with being governed by the EU was there was no way of changing things when they did not work for us.

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Julian Morgan, Managing Director, KPM Marine

1. What are the great Brexit Britain wealth opportunities, from your perspective?

Running up to the Referendum I truly believed that the EU project was pivotal to our future prosperity. As I read, the more I realised that the EU was anti-competitive, anti-democratic and declining as an economic power, with the rest of the world outpacing it.

Unlike the EU, the combined Commonwealth countries are a larger trading block and are growing at a much faster rate. Yet the UK could not take advantage of all the benefits of our long term and historical membership of the Commonwealth club due to laws and trade policies set by the EU. Not only was the EU anti-competitive but its trade policies with developing nations were akin to colonialism and were not allowing developing nations to add value to their own resources. With fair and free trade, these developing nations could be masters of their own prosperity and this would also allow the UK to purchase products and food at world prices, not EU tariff-inflated prices.

My business network is already seeing significant opportunities with non EU countries, especially from America and East Asia, with Africa and Australia also moving quickly to create trade relationships. With the UK about to have the shackles of punitive EU tariffs and policies removed thanks to Brexit, we are seeing a renaissance in trade with fast-growing economies.

My company exports 80% of its marine products to 38 countries in the world. Our exports to the EU have consistently declined year on year and now stand at a record low of about 5%. Those I know in my sector of business in the UK are reporting similar trends.

2. How should we take advantage of them?

Firstly we must accelerate the setting up of CANZUK – a Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK partnership. With the current stand off between China and America, and with Japan now extracting its manufacturing from China, we have an opportunity for product manufacturing to be localised again.

The UK shares much in common with Japan and is an ideal satellite for manufacturing and services that was previously lost to China. By the UK being free of the EU it can take advantage by being agile in its policies as well as creating incentives for Foreign Direct Investment, of which the UK has taken the lion’s share from the EU since before the Referendum. In addition the UK can become a trade catalyst not only between the USA, China, Japan and the whole Commonwealth but also with the EU if we choose. I call this the “UK Trade Gateway”. A mutually beneficial, fast-track work and visa policy should be set up to allow all Commonwealth members ease of movement and to establish satellite businesses to be established in the UK. In this way we will attract the very best talent and promote strong trading links.

3. If the EU continue to be unreasonable in the trade talks, should we revoke the WA and walk? If so, when?

The UK can only achieve agility and grasp opportunity if it is free to pursue its own future unhindered of any level playing field caveats demanded by the EU. This being the case, the UK will only be able to achieve this with WTO terms.

4. Contemplating our 31 December exit from the EU, what do you want from the Government?

To exit on WTO terms and accelerate trade talks with the Commonwealth. I would like to see Exclusive Commonwealth Trade Areas (ECTA) set up in the Midlands, North East, and West, with free port status for manufacturing, imports and exports.