How the UK-Australia free trade agreement is worth 200 times less than EU membership

The government’s own estimates suggest that the Australia deal will only boost GDP by 0.02 per cent, compared to a 4 per cent loss from Brexit.

By Patrick Scott

The added value of the UK’s new Australia free trade agreement appears paltry when compared to the expected cost of Brexit.

The government’s own forecasts estimate that the deal will likely be worth around 0.02 per cent of GDP annually over the next 15 years. This amount is around 200 times smaller than the 4 per cent loss that the government estimates the UK will suffer from leaving the EU.

Australia, of course, isn’t the only country with which the UK will be able to sign a new trade deal and nor is it the biggest (though even a US trade deal would only be worth an estimated 0.16 per cent.)

But the figures serve to underline just how far there is for Brexit Britain to go before it even achieves parity with its previous position as an EU member state.