Brexit ‘sabotage’ has cost Britain up to £30bn every year, says David Miliband

Former foreign secretary David Miliband claims Brexit is an act of “sabotage” that leaves Britain up to £30bn a year worse off.

He says the loss of revenue caused by leaving the EU is equivalent to imposing a “punitive tax every day” on the UK.

He writes in Sir Anthony Seldon’s ongoing serialization book, The Brexit Effect IndependentMr Miliband is calling on the Labor government to “give new political impetus” to rebuilding closer ties with the EU.

And he warns that Britain will pay an even heavier price if this challenge is not met urgently.

Serialization is part of a new campaign Independent on how Britain could rebuild its broken ties with Europe. The Europe: Road to Return campaign will feature news, analysis, interviews and live events examining the impact of Brexit and what our relationship with Europe should look like.

Mr Miliband writes: “Britain remains a European country. We need to act as such, cooperate as if we understand the consequences, and realize that the rest of the world owes us nothing. If we don’t get our act together, fool us more. We need to renew the cooperation sabotaged by Brexit.”

Mr Miliband, who contested the 2010 Labor leadership contest and narrowly lost to his brother Ed, a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet, said: “We suffer every day from a punitive Brexit tax.

“Estimates suggest the cost of remaining outside the customs union is 0.5-1 per cent of GDP, around £15-30bn a year.

“We cannot remain silent on these issues.”

This comes as Britain’s relationship with Europe comes back into the political spotlight, particularly within the Labor Party.

Sir Keir Starmer said closer ties with the continent would be at the heart of his response to last month’s negative local election results, adding that he believed Brexit was “holding our young people back”.

Prime Minister told Mirror: “I will not let Brexit hinder their opportunities and that is why we will continue to move forward on this.”

Wes Streeting, who resigned from the cabinet following these results and announced he would take part in such a contest, made his opening speech calling for the UK to rejoin the European Union when he was expected to challenge Sir Keir for the leadership.

Andy Burnham, who has also said he will enter the leadership race if he is successful in this month’s Makerfield by-election, told last year’s Labor Party conference that he wants Britain to rejoin the bloc “in my lifetime”.

The Greater Manchester mayor added: “People become more prosperous when they join unions. That’s my belief and I’ll say it openly.”

Mr Burnham, who is now fighting to win a seat that voted in favor of leaving in 2016, has since told ITV: “I’ve said there’s a case for it in the long term, but I’m not advocating it in this by-election.”

Mr Miliband, who is now chairman of the US-based International Rescue Committee, says Britons’ poverty of “£16,000 per person per year in the UK is poorer than we would have been if we had maintained pre-2008 economic growth”.

In December, research from King’s College London, Stanford University, the Bank of England and the University of Nottingham found that business investment was predicted to be between 12 and 18 per cent lower than the counterfactual if Brexit did not happen.

The study also found that employment and productivity have fallen by 3 to 4 per cent compared to where they would have been without Brexit.

Mr Miliband said leaving the EU would not solve the migration problem either.

“Let us remember that when we were members of the EU, we had the right to send back anyone who arrived on a small boat from France to the country where they first touched European soil,” Mr Miliband writes.

“Orderly, fair and rapid migration rules and decisions are in the interest of refugees as well as host communities.”

Mr Miliband says “growing global disorder” makes Britain’s relations with the EU and other European countries “more important, not less”.

“We face a common threat from an increasingly anarchic ‘might makes right’ globalization. We must seek stabilizing buoys in this stormy sea.”

He adds that the government’s aim should not be to “try to restore lost dominance” of the UK but “to regain the moral clarity and political vision of who we are and what we stand for”.

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