Douglas Carswell's Blog

In trade terms, Britain is already pulling away from Euroland

As the Western financial saga has rolled on, a lot of folk have asked what it means for the future of the Eurozone.  Perhaps we should instead look at what impact it is having on our trade relations with Europe and the wider world.

There has been a striking shift in trade patterns in a very short space of time - and evidence that this is only the beginning of a profound realignment of our trade ties away from the EU towards Asia and the Anglosphere.

I have a graph in front of me that shows UK trade relations in 1990.  Back then, eight of our top ten export markets were in the EU.  China does not even feature on the graph, and when I look it up, I discover why.  China in that year accounted for less than one percent of our exports.

Yet consider what has happened in a mere three years between 2009 and 2011.  The value of our trade in exported goods to China first overtook Sweden.  Then Italy.  Then Spain.  Looking at the data, it is no longer far fetched to imagine a day in the not too distant future when we export more to China than we do to France.

And it is not only China.  India, Turkey, Singapore and a host of others are rising up the trade charts.

At the time of the first Ireland bailout, a Treasury spokesman keen to persuade us that we should stump up the money, pointed out that Britain did more trade with Ireland than with the BRIC countries.  Not any more. 

Looking at recent trade data from the Office of National Statistics, it seems that the value of goods trade with Ireland in 2009 was approximately £27 billion and had risen to £29 billion in 2011.  China trade leapfrogged that and accounts from over £37 billion.  

Those in Westminster might be the last people to realise it, but we are witnessing a historic realignment of our trade relations away from Euroland and towards the wider world. 

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