Eurosceptic Jerry Smith's denunciation of the EU raises more questions than it answers.
He asserts as a "fact" that the EU is "the least competitive trading bloc in the world", yet also tells us that the UK has a trade deficit with the rest of the EU of £55.7bn. If these countries, despite being so uncompetitive, have managed to export so much more to the UK than we have exported to them, what does that tell us about the UK's competitiveness? Presumably, it means that the UK is even more uncompetitive than "the least competitive trading bloc in the world"
If this is correct, the only advantage in leaving the EU would be that we could then shelter our inefficient domestic producers by imposing import restrictions against our former EU partners. However, quite apart from any retaliation that this might provoke, it is generally accepted that import restrictions, by reducing competitive pressure, tend to reduce the efficiency of domestic industries. Probably not the outcome Smith wants. The underlying and fundamental problem with Smith's analysis is its implicit assumption that the competitiveness of a nation is analogous to the competitiveness of a corporation or an industry. The fallacy in this regrettably common approach has been exposed with wonderful clarity in many writings by Nobel laureate Professor Paul Krugman. Just type Krugman national competitiveness into your web browser.
Read more: Europe is not declining, the rest of the world is catching up | World news | The Guardian
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