The Importance Of EU Membership In The UK

Last year, the Conservative party in the UK made huge gains by winning the general elections. This win initiated a manifesto pledge to carry out a referendum on Britain 's membership in the European Union, with a final decision set to be made by the end of 2017. Last winter, current Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, went on a tour of the most notorious EU capitals in which he attempted to renegotiate Britain 's terms of membership within the Union. After the tour, Cameron proceeded to campaign wholeheartedly to keep Britain within a reformed EU under newly negotiated terms and conditions. However, several members of his own Cabinet still continue to argue for a British exit, or what is colloquially referred to as Brexit (“EU Referendum”).

First, trade agreements between the various European countries could be affected in less-than-favorable ways for Britain. This is because the UK 's greatest trading partner is the EU, with 52% of total trades of goods and services coming from the other countries within the European Union. "The UK is always likely to be better positioned to secure beneficial trade deals as a member of the EU than as an individual and isolated player," says Labour 's Europe spokeswoman Emma Reynolds (“UK and the EU”). With ongoing negotiations being made between the EU and the U.S. to create the biggest free trade area in the world, it would seem a system like this would greatly benefit British business, with such a system becoming much more difficult to access if a Brexit were to occur. Also, the economic implications from the United Kingdom dropping their membership from the European Union could greatly harm their national economy. Pressure group "Business For New Europe" says that the UK 's contribution to the EU budget is very minimal compared to the benefits of being in the singular European market. UK exporters could be faced with high costs, especially if they

Eurosceptic Tory MP, Bill Cash, stated that, "[The UK] will continue to trade with Europe, as part of an association of nation states" (“UK and the EU”). Though Britain’s current trade agreements with the European Union would be severed and could possibly result in a collapsed trade system, leaving the EU also gives Britain the opportunity to create better, more financially advantageous accordances. Additionally , Britain would be free to create trade agreements with export markets such as China, Brazil, Singapore, India, and Russia through the World Trade Organization. Also, imported food from countries outside of the European Union would become cheaper as tariffs are lowered (“UK and the EU”). One of the primary arguments against the United Kingdom dropping their membership to the EU is that the UK would lose billions of dollars of funding for what? as a result. The UK 's national Treasury states that EU total payments to the British public was 4.4 billion euros in 2015. Private organizations were payed another 1.4 billion in 2013, according to the most recent reports. This data means that the UK receives approximately 6 billion euros a year from the European Union (Kirkup). Normally this would be a very prominent reminder of why the UK 's EU membership is so valuable, but this is not the outcome. The UK would also save an extraordinarily large amount of money. A split with the