Trade with EU is a small portion of our economy

But about 70 per cent of our economy is based on the financial sector, which is not part of our dealings with the EU. So a No Deal Brexit will affect only about 30 per cent of our economy, at a maximum.

And, of course, we do not trade only with the EU while we are members.

For instance we have a roughly £50 billion positive trade balance with the USA despite operating on EU terms for trade with other countries; these make our imports more costly than if we were trading under our own terms (to protect the least efficient EU producers). And of course the USA has only about 350 million population compared to about 435 million in the rest of the EU (we do not export to ourselves).

We also trade with many other countries under EU terms and I understand that they have been asked by Brussels to continue these contracts while new deals are negotiated.

So our trade with the countries in the EU is significantly smaller than 30 per cent of our economy and with the added cost of being members of the EU is a very inefficient way of trading.

If we do not leave now, we will leave in the next few years when Germany and France attempt to unify the EU states.

At this time there will be

a number of states who would be better off out of the United States of Europe and there will be a rush for all these states to find new trading partners; we need to be ahead of this rush and to have signed up to the deals we have already agreed in principle during the last two years.

As for costs of these deals under WTO rules, most of the world have growing economies and trade under these rules.

And after we (the fifth largest trading nation in the world despite our shackles under the EU) leave, the lttle EU will be left to wither while we prosper once more and regain all our democratic freedoms.

K W Newby, Elm Park, Bosham