The benefits of leaving
Even if Britain’s overall trade with Europe did suffer, it is quite easy to imagine these losses being offset over the long term by the opportunities, created by leaving the European Union, to boost trade with other countries. In recent years, export growth for the United Kingdom has, in the main, come from outside the European Union. Over the coming years, economic growth is likely to be much stronger in the rest of the world than in the European Union. Brexit would therefore give Britain a crucial opportunity by allowing it to broker its own trade deals with non-European Union countries. This is not currently possible under European Union membership, as any trade negotiations can only be carried out for the Union as a whole. There remain large areas of the world with which the European Union has not reached a free trade agreement. (See Figure 14.)