The IFS also pour
further scorn on the Leave campaign’s claims about the cost of EU membership: ‘Claims that we
would have an additional £350 million a week to spend are wrong. They imply
that following a UK exit other EU countries would continue to pay a rebate to
the UK on contributions it was not making. Such claims also imply we would
simply stop all existing EU subsidies to farming and poorer regions (such as Northumberland, Cornwall and west Wales) (IFS Press Release, 25 May 2016, link).
Paul Johnson also told Today: ‘You cannot get a
better trading relationship with the European Union than the one we already
have. It is as free as it is possible to have between one country and
another set of countries...at the moment nearly half, 44 per cent of our
exports go into the European Union and whatever deal we came out with would be
worse than the deal that we have at the moment’ (Today, BBC Radio Four, 25 May
2016).