Editorial: Give us the real EU figures

There is a particular intense look that Nick Clegg has when he tells you just how many jobs Britain will lose if it leaves the European Union. “Three million,” he says, his eyes bright with certainty, marking each syllable with a slice of his hand.

But he has no grounds to be so sure (although his own job, as the coalition’s most outspoken voice in favour of EU membership, might be an early casualty of a UK exit). Neither does David Cameron, in declaring the present arrangements intolerable for this country without the renegotiation of the “terms of membership” on which he has now embarked. When pressed on whether Britain’s membership is overall a cost or a benefit, ministers and civil servants scrabble for the few studies that have so far attempted an answer, or brandish scattered statistics from the pro and anti Europe camps, based on assumptions so different as to make comparison nonsensical.

Richard Lambert has conducted an impressive review (£) of this scrappy, treacherous battle as part of his passionate defence of Britain remaining a full member of the EU. That is a case with which I strongly agree—and for the same reasons as he gives. Looking at the likely impact on growth immediately following a British exit, contrary to all the hyperbolic claims, there is not a strong case either way (and Clegg take note—the claims about jobs immediately lost do not spring from any solid survey). Similarly, claims about the cost, or benefit, of “red tape” to business pull both ways; again, little good work has yet been done. But one powerful argument is that Britain would lose its appeal to foreign investment; the effect would take a few years to be pronounced, but the impact on growth and jobs then hard to reverse.

Think tanks and academics are now embarking on more thorough studies, but none has completed a proper “audit”—and the government has not even started. This is no basis on which to ask British people to vote “In” or “Out” in 2017.  This government—not least because of the clash of views within the coalition—owes the UK a proper review, driven by a cross-party parliamentary commission. That should look at the status quo, an exit (and the alternatives for that), and the ways of improving the single market if Britain stayed in, such as properly opening up the market for services—hugely of benefit to this country.

All this is not to say that a role in the EU should be judged in purely economic terms. Britain gains in its influence in the world from its membership (see "The Syria trap"). It is a delusion of an old-fashioned kind of Atlanticism to think that the United States would pay as much attention to the UK if it quit the European club. And this country gains from the reinforcement of shared values and culture across the European continent. All the same, the battle that has begun is being fought in a storm of spurious economic claims. Give us the real numbers—and start the work on them now.