Labour’s great idea – shackle ourselves to the world’s biggest losers

Tuesday blog

Starmer, Reeves and company seem to be doing everything thay can to p*ss of the USA and ingratiate ourselves with the EU. Our future economic growth, Starmer and Reeves assure us, lies in closer relations with the EU and the US can go swing in the wind.

Being a really really boring person, I had a quick look at the basic numbers to check whether alienating America and grovelling to the EU really was the route to Britain’s economic salvation.

Here are a few, possibly relevant, figures:

• The US economy is projected to hit around $31.82 trillion in 2026. The EU is projected to reach $22.52 trillion
• The population of the USA is about 342 million and the EU population about 450 million
• The GDP per capita of the US is around $86,000 compared to the EU’s GDP per capita of just $43,000. The UK’s gdp per capita is about $60,000

So there’s something bit odd here. The UK’s gdp per capita lies between the US’s impressive $86,000 and the EU’s rather less admirable $43,000. Yet Starmer and Reeves claim we’re better off distancing ourselves from the rich USA and getting closer to the much poorer EU. Hmmm?

Now we need to look at projected gdp growth rates:

• The 2026 projected growth rate for the US economy is about 2.1%
• The 2026 projected growth rate for the EU is 1.4%
• The 2026 projected growth rate for the UK is 1.3%

So, if you weren’t Starmer or Reeves, which economy would you rather link into? The USA’s with a projected 2026 growth rate of 2.1% on an economy worth $31.82 trillion or the EU’s with a projected growth rate of just 1.4% on an economy worth just $22.52 trillion?

Tough question, huh?

But don’t worry. Having having had the figures analysed by hordes of spotty, just-out-of-universlty, barely pubescent spads, Starmer and Reeves have decided that the EU is our economic future.

I guess I could never have become a government adviser as I would have based my advice on facts rather than ideological fantasies.