Another round of negotiation

Listened to the Chief Executive of the Leave Campaign  Mathew Elliot interviewed in the Treasury Select Committee, I was quite  disappointed listening to him backtrack on the claims they have been making recently regarding the savings they suggest which can be made by leaving the EU. They state the cost of EU regulation was an opportunity for saving money if we came out whilst in fact much of these costs would remain if we were in or out of the EU.
One of the positive aspects of belonging to the EU has been the relentless pressure on British business and the Government here covers such matters of The Working Time Directive, and the Minimum Wage to name only two things. European temperament has always had a humanitarian edge to it in contrast to the Anglo / American model of laissez faire and market forces. With what appears to be a long period of unfettered Conservative Governance we might wish for those European regulations.
It's hard to hold much confidence in the lead people who support the leave campaign.
Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, John Wittingdale, Liam Fox, are not people who I for one would leave the trenches for. The most positive campaigner is Nigel Ferage who's chirpy dialogue on the subject, is a torrent of superlatives for leaving forthwith, post-haste and without the customary handshake.  
The issues, which I have covered in previous blogs, are ones of equating a fear.
The fear of loosing any economic advantage we have of being in a larger marketplace, against the fear of any practical form of control being subsumed in a none democratic, 27 nation lash-up. Held together by a none elected, unaccountable bureaucracy, which is in danger of falling apart under the weight of manifestly variable financial constituencies, without a mechanism for recycling surpluses amongst them. Add to this the Schengen problem of free movement of labour which was alright until Europe felt the weight of an avalanche of refugees mixed up with economic immigrants and containing the threat of jihadi John.
The economic argument was interesting since one of the problems of coming out is that we will be required to renegotiate trade deals with the EU. The tariffs we will be required to pay are a matter of conjecture since it is argued that the EU countries will want to trade with us as much as we with them.

 One way of looking at the cost is that we will have the WTO (World Trade Organisation) tariff which is 2.4%. This means that with the claw back of our membership fee less the repatriated money (the EU money spent in Britain) means we will be around 9 billion in credit if we leave but we have to offset this saving by the WTO tariff cost to trade in the EU which represents about 7 billion. So all in all we are about quits financially, no membership fee versus a recognisable and relative low tariff to trade in the Euro Zone.

Removing the fear of being caught up in the possible calamity of a failed Euro Zone and the prospect of having our society even more modified by the rights of new entrants to Europe having an EU passport and free access to an already creaking infrastructure in this country I have to say the "leave" prospectus gets my vote unless I can be convinced otherwise.