Business split on EU stance, but all support reform
Jonathan Lindsell, 4 November 2013
The last week has seen studies and counter-studies from different Eurofactions. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) released a report today arguing ‘EU membership is the best vehicle for achieving these open, global ambitions in the 21stcentury’. The CBI’s study is hefty at 187 pages, and concedes that there are numerous areas in which the EU should improve, but ultimately concludes against a British exit.
In cold cash terms, they claim:
‘It is not unreasonable to infer from a literature review that the net benefit arising from EU membership is somewhere in the region of 4–5% of UK GDP or between ￡62bn and ￡78bn per year – roughly the economies of the North East and Northern Ireland taken together. This suggests that households benefit from EU membership to the tune of nearly ￡3,000 a year – with every individual in the UK around ￡1,225 better off.’ (p.11)
They further suggest that 71% of their members ‘reported that the UK’s membership of the EU has had a positive overall impact on their business,’ and eight out of 10 firms surveyed would vote to remain in the EU if there was a referendum today. This positive message is reinforced by the Business Secretary Vince Cable, who argued yesterday in the Guardian that ‘the EU serves to anchor the UK’s global trade’ and ‘[m]illions of jobs and livelihoods depend on it’, whilst it only costs us a relatively modest £110 per person. His Liberal Democrat colleague in the Treasury, Danny Alexander, added: ‘This compelling report makes a powerful business case for the UK’s continued membership of the EU.’
However the campaign group Business for Britain, which seeks a ‘new deal’ from the EU, recently released a poll conducted by YouGov, which surveyed 1,028 businesses of different sizes across the country. They found that ‘46% – 37% British businesses say that the costs of complying with the Single Market outweigh the benefits of being in the EU‘ and that ‘66% – 26% British business leaders support holding a referendum on the EU‘.
Amusingly, 5% of the YouGov respondents were CBI members – and of these, ‘49% – 44% believe that the disadvantages of the Single Market now outweigh the benefits’, and they support an EU referendum 71%-29%. Among these and from the wider business community, the YouGov poll found overwhelming support for the repatriation of key powers from Brussels to Parliament: Monopolies and competition regulation; Employment law and working qualifications; Company taxation and VAT; Data protection and consumer rights; Product and services regulation; Environmental regulation; Health and safety regulation; Waste regulation; and Weights and measurements.
Civitas’ own research suggests that the CBI report understates the costs of EU membership, and a report by Glyn Gaskarth recommends 10 areas of competence that David Cameron should aim for in his renegotiation strategy.