If you take GDP as a measure of our success, the small increase in GDP is due to increase in population. Per capital GDP has remained the same.
We do not have the skills, the manufacturing base, the drive or productivity we would need to take off as an independent nation. Its inadequacies have been compensated by membership of the European Union.
Education is the biggest weakness. Recent OECD report of 35 advanced countries showed that scores for literacy and numeracy among 16- to 24-year olds in England and Northern Ireland rank among the lowest four countries.
More than half of that age group also have poor technological skills, they rank alongside USA in the bottom of that pile.
We import a huge number of immigrants to do what Briton’s won’t or can’t do. For every hour we work, we produce about a fifth less than then average among the G-7 countries.
Britain’s prosperity is also undermined by the very uneven spread of wealth. Confederation of British Industry forecasts that Britain’s GDP could be 3 to 5.5% lower by 2020 than would have been if had remained as members of EU.
National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that Britain would lose a fifth of its trade in goods and a quarter in services. Even if negotiated favourable trading terms with other ten nations across the world which would take ten years, they would make up only about a quarter of what we lost.
Nagindas Khajuria
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