Anti-Brexit campaigners have seized on a bleak Whitehall assessment of the economic impact of leaving the European Union, published following a battle over government secrecy.
MPs voted in January for the document to be released in full, but its publication was resisted by the Brexit secretary, David Davis.
The cross-party Brexit select committee issued the document, which was prepared to aid thinking inside government about possible scenarios, on Thursday.
As leaks had suggested, government number crunchers found that economic growth would suffer under any of the existing models for a future relationship with the EU – a Norway-type European Economic Area (EEA) model; a free trade agreement; or trading on the basis of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules alone.
Under the worst scenario – a WTO-type arrangement – GDP could decline by a cumulative 7.7% over 15 years, the analysis found; while under an EEA deal it would be 1.6%.
The committee’s chair, the Labour MP Hilary Benn, said: “The results of this analysis, undertaken by the government with the aim of quantifying the potential impact of leaving the EU on the British economy, are already largely in the public domain in one form or another.
Source:
theguardian
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