Quote: Lord Elpers " ... Our huge trade deficit with the EU together with the cost of membership produces an unconvincing argument for staying in. (46bn GBP deficit with EU in 2011 ...17.1bn surplus with rest of world)
...'"
Ignoring your erroneous stats, you are saying that because we have a trade deficit we should cut off (or, at the very least, create massive tariff problems with and hugely reduce trade with) our largest customer?
You have also ignored the fact that the UK has run a balance of trade deficit in goods for decades now ... should we therefore withdraw from the world as well as the EU? Of course not.
Quote: Lord Elpers " ... My own view is to try and win back some powers that give some benefit to our trade but I am at present open minded as to staying in or leaving. I would like to see the full facts. '"
We need the EU to address the regulation of trade in services ... as it did so successfully with the regulations around trade in goods.
This is vital for the UK, otherwise we will see Frankfurt becoming the first-choice supplier of financial and other services for the Eurozone, taking business from the City of London.
If the UK is not at the heart of that transformation, the UK will be much worse-off over time.
CAP needs to be addressed, yet again,
Also, there may be areas of EU law where subsidiarity needs to be considered instead (see the other thread about federalism and subsidiarity).
But these are ongoing business, none are reasons for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Most of the facts are out there, freely available, no-one is stopping you finding them.
Mind you, I haven't noticed your confessed lack of factual knowledge stopping you from having a vociferous opinion.
Quote: Lord Elpers " ... However my guess is that the real economic plus or minus to our membership is very small (UK exports to the EU are equivalent to less than 8.7% of UK GDP much less than the rest of the world (10%)) and talk of an economic disaster if we leave are just scare stories. Under Article 50, the EU is legally required to negotiate "free and fair trade" with non-EU countries, so we would continue to have access to the EU markets, just like other countries. The EU would not want a trade war with the UK, if we were outside the single market as they have much more to lose than we.'"
The EU (the world's largest economy) negotiates with nations and trade areas and has vastly far more clout with them than the UK alone could have.
The UKs trade with the rest of the world will be significantly affected by this, whether we like it or not, and whether we remain in or opt-out of the EU, simply as a result of the EUs power.
You have taken a very simplistic view of trade in goods, for example ignoring the tariffs that would be imposed upon the UK's goods exports into the EU.
You have also ignored the massive impact on the UKs trade in financial and other services that would (not "could" but "would" occure) if the UK was outside the EU.
You state that the EU has more to lose than we have ... this is a skewed view ... we would risk nearly half our exports (e.g. we are nowadays net exporters of cars ... where are the jobs going to come from to replace that trade?), whereas the loss to the EU would be borne collectively by 26 states with no individual state having to bear more than a fraction of the impact that we would suffer.
The repercussions would take many, many decades to overcome, if indeed they ever could be.
Not only that, but we must not ignore the enormous elephant in the room ... i.e. the huge loss of geopolitical clout that the UK would sustain if it left the EU ... just as an example, the UN security council is already starting to shift inexorably to the BRICs and, if we are not in the EU (which can retain influence there), we will be reduced to the level of a puppet state dancing on US strings.