In the light of exports soaring and factories having their longest period of expansion for 20 years in Brexit Britain, Leave campaigners are wondering why Prime Minister Theresa May is making concessions and “grovelling” to Brussels for a trade agreement.
Official figures released Thursday show that exports of goods have risen in every area across the country, thanks in part to a more competitive pound boosting business.
In the first nine months of 2017, sales of goods for export made in England were up 14.1 per cent to £241.1 billion; Welsh exports rose 18.9 per cent to £16.4 billion; Northern Ireland sales increased to £8.5 billion, rising by 13.3 per cent; and Remain-voting Scotland saw the highest increase in sales of goods for export, rising by 19.9 per cent to £28 billion.
Top export destinations were the U.S. (for England), the Netherlands (for Scotland), Germany (for Wales), and the Republic of Ireland (for Northern Ireland).
UKIP’s International Trade spokesman William Dartmouth told Breitbart London: “These exports figures show our businessmen and women, across the whole of the United Kingdom, are doing what they’re supposed to be doing: investing, innovating, and exporting successfully in a competitive global market.
“Our economic future depends on them — not tawdry, gimcrack, lightweight politicians — and the politicians need to understand this.”
“Considered in the light of our strong post-referendum performance, and the fact that we have an £80bn trade deficit with the EU, it is a national humiliation to see our prime minister grovelling to overfed bureaucrats in Brussels for a trade agreement which matters a lot more to them than it does to us,” the Earl of Dartmouth said.
Indeed, the Hungarian foreign minister noted in June that failure by the bloc’s leadership to strike a deal with the UK could result in a “nightmare scenario” in which the UK signs a series of global agreements and leaves European producers at a competitive disadvantage.
Former chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce and Brexit campaigner John Longworth told the Daily Mail: “It is vital we don’t throw away our fantastic future by capitulating to EU demands for Brexit in name only.”
Meanwhile, Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures released Friday reveal that British factories grew for the sixth consecutive month during October, boosted by higher levels of car manufacturing, marking the longest sustained period of growth for two decades.
A separate set of figures released last week by the IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply found that all manufacturing sectors are at their most upbeat since the summer of 2013, and as a result, factories are taking on employees at the most rapid pace since June 2014.
Since the Brexit vote, the UK was ranked the seventh-best country in the world to do business, held her ranking as the third most favourable destination for companies to invest, and was predicted to outperform France, Germany, and the entire Eurozone in the coming years – in defiance of ‘Project Fear’ predictions that a vote to leave the bloc would result in a recession, job losses, and a loss of foreign investors.