Project Fear continues.with Forecasts

Today we had the Treasury forecast that if Brexit happens, we will all be £4300 per household worse off by 2030.

If this is as accurate as recent Treasury forecasts concerning the country's budget and growth for periods of just one financial year, any forecasts as to what might happen after 16 years are just wishful thinking. A recent statement by the 'Remain' campaigners admitted that wages for the lower paid would continue to be depressed due to the high levels of unskilled immigration, so it would seem that the lower paid lose out either way!

By some convoluted thinking, the Chancellor also suggested that taxes would have to rise if we left the EU because we would no longer be getting the present grants from Brussels. But since we paid them the money in the first place, and they took a large cut before paying back some of it in grants, if we kept our taxes at the present level and paid the grants directly, the Chancellor would have the whole of the cut taken by Brussels to start paying off our debts or allowing more spending on the NHS.

Of course, with proper border control and hopefully less immigration than at present, the strain on the NHS would be significantly reduced, under which circumstances the NHS would probably be able to cope without any major budget increase.

But the Treasury is not the only state organisation to be incapable of economic forecasting; the Bank of England is just as bad. For several years running in their annual forecasts, they have suggested that interest rates would start rising within the next six months, when in fact, as far as both savers and borrowers are concerned they are still falling. Now they have suggested that rates would rise in the event of Brexit; is this forecast any better than their previous ones?

It is also suggested that trade with the EU would decline in the event of Brexit. Why should it? I'm sure that Mercedes, BMW and VW will still want to sell us their cars; if the EU imposes trade sanctions on our exports, we would be free to do the same and the Germans would be one of the biggest losers.

There is also the suggestion last week that Brexit would result in major repercussions and a slump in not just our economy but that of the world at large. However a few weeks previously we had been told that our country is too small 'to go it alone'. These contradictory arguments make you begin to wonder if any of these so called experts have the vaguest idea of what they are talking about. Why should the actions of a 'tiny insignificant country' (their phrase) like ours have any effect on the world economy?

I'm awaiting forecasts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries concerning plagues of locusts decimating our crops and the absence of Spanish trawlers from our fishing grounds causing massive problems due to under-fishing.

An afterthought:
Has anyone in the remain side provided a forecast as the increase in the EU budget by 2030? I suspect that the additional cost to each family of belonging will far outstrip the £4300 that Osborne claims will be the cost of Brexit.