No “insider advantages” from EU membership for UK: think tank

The UK had not gained any "insider advantages" from EU membership in trade with other European countries, a report by social policy think tank Civitas said.

According to the report, trade with fellow EU nations made up no more of the UK's trade with all top economies now than it did when it first joined the EEC in 1973.

The benefit of collectively negotiated EU free trade deals was also questioned.

According to the government, the EU's share of UK trade had remained consistent due to huge growth in other markets.

The report comes as contradictory to the analysis by the Confederation of British Industry.

The Civitas report, Where's the Insider Advantage? added that EU did not appear to have benefitted UK service industries either, although it admitted the data available on this was not so detailed.

According to the report, by corporate market researcher Michael Burrage: "There is no evidence to suggest that the 'heft' or 'clout' of the EU has helped secure more FTAs than those that might have been secured by independent negotiations.''

"There were 25 EU FTAs in force in 2012 while the Swiss had independently negotiated 26, 13 of which came into force before those of the EU and three in the same year."

The report said the UK's exports to Europe had grown at a slower rate than the UK's trade with other leading countries outside the EU bloc, over the past four decades.

The report further pointed out that trade with countries outside the EU – such Iceland, Norway and Switzerland – had increased enormously over the same period.

The report from the centre-right Civitas, which used trade figures from the OECD, suggested fears about losing jobs and growth if the UK left the EU might be misplaced.

The then prime minister minister Harold Wilson had told the public that the EU was 'the world's most powerful trading bloc' while campaigning ahead of the last referendum on membership in 1975.

However,  according to Burrage, a former academic at the London School of Economics and now director of an Asian market research firm, the new figures made clear the single market had 'changed nothing'.