The very uneasy truth is that the rest of the world powers ahead without us, largely due to our bizarre decision to maintain an investment and policy status quo. In order for the UK to catch up and ensure a comparable future to our often brilliant past, we need to re-strategise and knuckle down to some hard work. I see three main pillars for a pro-growth strategy which we now need more than ever.
First of all, the second quarter of this year marked a true milestone in our trade relations. Namely, for the first time since our joining the European Common Market in the 1970s, we exported more to countries outside of the EU than to the EU itself. Of course, with the collapse of the Eurozone, and growth in the so called BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China -- such a development was only a matter of time.
Nevertheless, this change needs some serious attention. The Commonwealth, for example, contains one of the BRICs (India) as well as some of the other powers of the developing world (e.g. Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia), developed countries in sought after markets (Canada, Australia) and rivals (Singapore - which rivals London as a financial hub). It could be turned into a “common market” platform to compensate for the EU slump.
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