Does the UK have all its wheels on the ground in Europe

I think it’s fair to say that Europe sees its’ self as an economic club, but like all democracies it’s determination of the economy is controlled by the public.  GDP is the barometer of this in Europe, and there are tables and, charts showing the UK as 3^rd behind Germany, and France.  It could make sense for other European countries that the 3^rd largest economy would have the 3^rd largest influence in Europe, and this seems true when you look at other European countries.  Except in the UK the size of the economy, and measures of influence on Europe don’t seem to add up.

As a Libdem I think it’s true that the economy is intertwined with humanities, and you have to be keep this in mind.  In the UK this is simply know as ‘The Left’, and ‘The Right’, and the structure in place is designed to keep this as active as possible.  It’s confusing to think of Europe this way, it’s much bigger, and it just doesn’t make the same sense, so it has to make sense to another country as an economic club.  This is simply about what the UK brings to the table, and the UK’s GDP means it bring more to the EU Budget than it takes away, but it’s economy because of it’s GDP can benefit more from the Single Market.  Surely then this equals a bigger influence!!! This isn’t actually the case, simply because we don’t have our full economic output on the table.  We are an economy where the UK is the largest export to import exporter in world for financial exports.  This isn’t part of the ‘Single Market’ because the service sector isn’t part of the ‘Single Market’, we also have several other strong sectors, with financial services being the most exportable.  Economic influence would only be based on goods that are included in the ‘Single Market’, with perhaps the exception of the impact free movement in Europe for the Tourism industries. Henceforth if the economy is balanced on the service sector, and it’s not a part of the table in Europe, the UK won’t get influence for it.

I believe that if the UK can push for the ‘Service Sectors’ to be part of the ‘Single Market’, this would push up our influence in Europe.  This is already high on the EU agenda, but I feel that’s it’s impact on UK influence is underestimated.  I believe rhetoric should shift to this, as current rhetoric is pushing us out of Europe, when we could be getting so much more from Europe.

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This post was written by colin