The UK Sold More Services To The USA Than To The Top Six EU Countries COMBINED
In 2020 the UK sold £98.5 billion in services to the EU27. Nevertheless, the UK sold more services to the USA than to the top six EU countries COMBINED.
Brexit Britain’s export of services in 2020
- United States: £72.7bn
- Germany. £16.8bn
- The Netherlands. £14.3bn
- Ireland. £13.4
- France. £13.1
- Switzerland. £10.4bn
- Japan. £6.4bn
- Italy. £5.8bn
- Spain. £5.6bn
- Australia. £5.4
The UK sold more services to the USA than to the top six EU countries COMBINED
The figures above show how the USA dwarfs any EU country as an export destination for Brexit Britain’s service industries. Despite the limitations imposed by Covid, the UK still sold £72.7 billion in services across the Atlantic Ocean. That’s more than to the top six EU countries across the English Channel COMBINED.
Cynics will say “Oh, but this is because of Brexit. I, therefore, decided to take a look at 2016, the EU Referendum year, as a comparison. The total sales of services to the EU27 in 2020 reduced by only 4.6% compared to 2016. This is far less of a drop than would be expected after Covid decimated businesses last year. Without Covid, there is no doubt that Brexit Britain would be outperforming pre-Brexit Britain in its exports of services to the EU27 countries.
Where do smaller EU countries rank?
One of the characteristics of the Remain campaign was its apparent inability to distinguish between the relative importance of the EU27 countries. The 27 often seemed to be referred to as if they were somehow of equal importance, despite people like myself pointing out that some of these countries would only qualify as large towns in the UK. The reason this was done by Remainers was of course to make the electorate feel that we would be leaving a bloc of 27 countries, when in fact just five of them account for two-thirds of the EU’s population, and some of the rest are tiny.
I looked at the ranking of some of the smaller EU countries in my analysis of the ONS data, and here are some of them.
EU country ranking by the size of UK export of services, 2020
- 97th — Slovenia (below Equatorial Guinea)
- 93rd — Latvia (below Sri Lanka)
- 91st — Croatia (below the Gambia)
One of the obvious points to make about the figures above is that it is not the EU that procures services, it is individual companies and government agencies in individual countries who do. All the EU can do is interfere in the normal running of the business, as it has for example in the provision of financial services.
When the EU has tried to extend its powers — as in the case of the vaccine programme — it has been an unmitigated disaster.
The EU is not yet a country. It is a dysfunctional, sclerotic, protectionist organisation that is pretending to be what it is not. Last week the pro-EU UK Foreign Office decided to grant full diplomatic status to the EU’s Ambassador to the Court of St James. I simply deplore this decision. Every one of the EU27 countries already has an Ambassador in London. Why should the United Kingdom tacitly acknowledge the EU as somehow having the status of a country, in effect giving each EU country double representation?
The simple fact is that national identity still matters to ordinary people. Try telling a Frenchman that France no longer exists as a country. Imagine the reaction as he splutters into his espresso and chokes on his croissant.
The autocrats who inhabit the upper echelons of supranational and international organisations such as the EU, the UN, the WHO, etc, might believe we all live in one world without borders, but normal people don’t.
As our archetypal Frenchman might say: “Vive la différence!”
Sources: Office for National Statistics
