Britain and Europe: For Richer or Poorer?

In three weeks, we all have to make a massive decision.

Let's get out. Let's get out.

Let's stop these faceless bureaucrats

from telling us what to do.

I say stay with what we've got, we're doing all right.

Let's get on with it.

But our choice about the European Union

could be an economic gamble.

I'm going to do each way on Sacred Trust.

You're being asked to choose

between a hypothetical universe outside the European Union,

or staying in something that is already changing.

The big names want to get you on their side.

We are a great country.

We can flourish if we stand on our own two feet.

It will be the ordinary working people of this country

who see their jobs threatened,

who see the value of their family home go down,

who see their wages hit.

What should we make of all the warnings of trouble if we leave?

I would be concerned about the immediate market consequences.

Frankly, I would be concerned about the outcome for the British people.

Businesses freeze up, confidence drains,

uncertainty clouds over, and an economic shock shakes our nation.

It's not going to happen. They're just talking bollocks.

Could breaking away set Britain free?

I'm really, really excited.

You know, we're the fifth-biggest trading nation.

Why can't we do this on our own?

Let's say knickers to the pessimists!

So if we leave, would we be richer or poorer?

'The headlines this morning. Britain has voted for Brexit.

'We're now going to go live to Downing Street

'to hear from the Prime Minister, David Cameron.'

-CAMERON:

-'Good morning.

'The people have spoken, and it is a clear result.

'Now the debate has been settled for a generation.

'Perhaps for a lifetime.

'It means pressure on the pound, it means jobs being lost.

'It means mortgage rates might rise, it means businesses closing.

'It means hard-working people losing their livelihood.'

But, hang on, would it really be doom and disaster

if we leave the EU?

# Good morning

# Good morning

# We've talked the whole night through

# Good morning

# Good morning to you... #

Morning.

Or could it be a bright new dawn?

# ..It's great to stay up late

# Good morning

# Good morning to you... #

-BORIS JOHNSON:

-'Thanks to the referendum,

'we find that a door has magically opened in our lives.

'We can see the sunlit meadows beyond.'

# ..Sunbeams will soon smile through

# Good morning

# Good morning to you

# And you and you and you... #

Of course, life is rarely that black and white.

It's impossible to be as sure about all of this as the two sides claim.

In reality, leaving the EU probably wouldn't be paradise or a disaster.

But what we do know is that money talks.

How we all make our living really matters

when it comes to this decision.

Politicians will do anything right now to grab your attention.

Well, it's David Cameron calling.

I'm calling from the Stronger In Campaign.

And they're making big, bold claims about your cash.

Leaving the EU is a one-way ticket to a poorer Britain.

Great British companies like this could in fact do even better

if we took back control of our economy and our democracy...

There's been a barrage of so-called facts and figures,

but can you believe them all?

You know what they say about statistics!

-Vote Leave.

-Vote Leave.

-Vote Leave.

-Vote Leave.

The Out Campaign keep pushing one figure

that's been impossible to ignore.

They've made it in steel...

..put it on the side of their bus...

..and even pretended to burn it.

We can take back control of £350 million a week.

But £350 million isn't quite the full story

about what we send to Brussels.

Some of the money never makes it in the first place

because of what's called the rebate,

and much of the rest of it is spent in the UK anyway.

You're claiming that £350 million goes to Brussels every week

and if we vote to leave,

somehow we will be able to control all of that money.

Now you know, saying again and again,

"We just send £350 million to Brussels a week,"

is not telling people the full story,

-because much of that money comes back.

-Well, I agree. I know.

But I go into a long account of what I think the full story is.

Actually, it's about 365 million all in,

if you look at the recent ONS figures, I think.

What that comprises is, as you know and I know, is the abatement

and of course the money we get back in investment.

So you've just admitted, Boris Johnson,

that much of that money comes back,

yet every day you're driving around the country with a bus

that says on the side, posters all over the land saying,

-"We send £350 million a week."

-Yes, but, Laura... We do.

You are asking people to make a momentous decision.

Don't you owe it to them to be completely clear about the facts?

Completely clear.

Yes. I genuinely have been many, many times on this very point.

The reason, I think, that it is legitimate

to use the £350 million figure

is because that is the sum that we do send to Brussels

and over which we have no control, because after all,

what happens is about half of that disappears, never to be seen again.

Some of it goes to Greek tobacco farmers,

some of it goes to support Spanish bullfighting or heaven knows what.

We don't know what happens to it.

The actual amount we send to Europe is somewhere between £250 million

and £275 million a week, because we get a rebate back.

Then, on top of that, we get additional money back to pay

to farmers, to pay to poorer regions,

so our net contribution after all of that is about £150 million a week.

Good morning.

But on the other side, the Remainers haven't shied away

from using figures that could do with some explaining too.

Britain would be poorer by £4,300 per household.

This could cost families £4,300.

That is £4,300 worse off every year.

A bill paid year after year by the working people of Britain.

You should know that statistic is a forecast.

It's an educated guess for 15 years from now.

That's quite a big number. Two things are important to be aware of.

First, that's not £4,000 a year worse off than you are today,

it's £4,000 worse off than you would be in the future.

Secondly, there's significant uncertainty around it.

When it comes to statistics, like the £4,300 number,

can we just be clear - that is an educated guess. That is not a fact.

So when you and the Prime Minister stand in front of banners, posters,

that use that figure, that's a guess, not a cast-iron fact.

If you take the £4,300 number, that's how much

the country would be poorer per household if we left the EU.

-That's a central estimate.

-It's an estimate, that's exactly the point.

It's a guess.

No, it's based on solid economic research,

it's backed up by what the IMF is telling us,

the Institute of Fiscal Studies, you know, these are organisations

that aren't in the control of the British Government.

You're not really treating voters with that much respect, are you?

These are educated guesses, but they are guesses.

Well, I think the British people want as much information as possible

before they make this huge decision.

It's probably the biggest decision any of us will be asked to take

as citizens of the United Kingdom in our lifetimes.

They need to know that the Treasury forecasts show

the country will be worse off,

that almost everyone else's forecasts show

the country will be worse off.

The individual businesses have told us that they

will either not take on new people or cancel investments

if we leave the EU. Those are all facts.

So be careful.

Inevitably, the politicians are using the statistics

that suit their side,

but what about those who really know about the bottom line -

the men and women who run the businesses that make up our economy

and provide our jobs?

Tucked away in Somerset is Wyke Farms dairy.

The family have been making cheese here for 150 years.

We're still using my grandmother's farmhouse Cheddar recipe.

Cheese-making and farming is in the family's blood.

-Smells nice.

-Smells good.

Smashing.

But guess where this most tasty, most British product

has found new fans?

Europe is a very big customer for us.

The French really like strong, mature Cheddars.

They quite like to get sort of intimate with their food,

so they like to try it on the delis and smell it and taste it.

Then, if they like it,

they'll buy it and they'll cook with it or they'll serve

it on a cheeseboard, so it's really growing in popularity,

English cheese in France.

Beating the French at their own game

has helped Richard to hire more staff.

They've all got something to say about the European Union.

I've been living with the EU all my life. I've had a good life.

I don't see why we should break the status quo.

My children, if they can carry on the same way as we have,

then it's great. A lot of good things come out of the EU,

so, yeah, I'd certainly vote to stay in.

Possibly the power that we've got at the moment is being taken away,

gradually being eroded over the years.

I think, you know, going independent wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

We know where we are. I think we're dealing with a known.

If it's not broke, don't fix it. I don't think it's broken.

It can perform better - by far it can perform better.

I think we'll be better off, more stability for the future.

We employ about 250 people in the region.

Obviously, for me, the most important thing

is keeping people's jobs safe

and, you know, looking after the farmers in the region.

And he puts much of their success down to being in the EU.

The Single Market works for us

and it is absolutely critical

in terms of exporting products to multiple countries within the EU.

The Single Market means Richard's cheese can go from Somerset

to France's croque monsieurs virtually uninterrupted.

Nearly half of all of Britain's exports go to the EU

and don't meet any extra taxes or tariffs.

When it works, it makes it easier for British companies

to trade and create jobs.

That was precisely the dream -

a vast area where Europeans could trade freely.

-REPORTER:

-With communication between countries half a world apart

nowadays no more than a matter of hours...

Most experts believe it's helped, not hindered.

The country is more prosperous since we joined the Common Market in 1973.

No less than 80% of British industry

believes the European free-trade area

will bring home the bacon of increased prosperity.

So what would happen if we left the EU and the Single Market?

I believe that if we leave Europe,

it'll be really bad for this business,

and for me, to leave would present an unacceptable level of risk

to those jobs, and businesses like ours,

that are working in Europe and trying to grow within Europe.

But in Kent, here's a very different kind of business.

Russ Pullen runs the British Hovercraft Company...

So, Christian, that can be in for trim on Monday.

..working with his wife Emma.

Are we going to have to change the mould with this?

That'll need to have a bigger base plate at the bottom, isn't it?

They've been in business for 20 years and employ 15 people...

..and don't forget the dog, Pebbles.

But they fall foul of a European directive,

a rule that makes it hard to sell their hovercrafts

in the European Union.

There is nothing we can do to change the EU directives, unfortunately,

so we constantly feel like we're bashing our heads against a brick wall.

We've been told, "Give up, don't worry, do something else."

For as long as we're in the Single Market,

it's down to the EU to work out how we do business

with the rest of the world.

Exporting to growing countries

is a massive problem for us.

For instance, Brazil - we had a guy come over,

a businessman from Brazil, wanting to buy

a large number of hovercraft from us.

Unfortunately, didn't go ahead with the deal

because the duty rate was so high,

so we lost a £50,000 deal with this guy,

who wanted to buy five craft from us,

because he would have had to pay an additional £50,000

to take it into his country,

because there hasn't been a trade deal agreed

between the EU and Brazil yet.

That's one of five countries I can think of off the top of my head

that I've had inquiries from that I can't deal with.

We're the fifth-biggest trading nation.

Why can't we do this on our own?

I don't understand - we've been brilliant for so many years

and we had an exporting empire that spanned the globe.

I want to be able to sell to Australia easier,

I want to be able to sell to America easier,

I want to be able to sell to these countries that I can do,

and what we produce here is hand built, British made,

and people really respect the British quality.

Pebbles! Heel!

Most of the workers here are right behind the boss.

Let's get out. Let's get out.

Let's stop these faceless bureaucrats

from telling us what to do.

Let's make our own laws and get on with life and be happy with it.

We never voted for anybody,

so let's stick with the people we vote for to make our laws

and have done with it.

It all seems to be about how it's good for big business

and not the individual, so how does it affect me?

That's what I want to know.

We've got to take control. We've got to take our country back.

I'm so proud of my country. I genuinely am.

I get really emotional about this

because I don't want to see us as just a puppet state of the EU,

and that's what we're becoming.

So, two businesses, two very different views

of how the EU does - or doesn't - work.

It's a tiny taste of the big arguments.

It's the biggest decision for a generation.

Does the EU help our economy...

..or not?

Our economy would take a hit if we leave.

If the economy takes a hit, tax revenues take a hit,

and if tax revenues take a hit,

you've got less money to spend on the things that we need.

For Britain, voting to leave

will be a galvanising, liberating, empowering moment

of patriotic renewal.

The Single Market brings extraordinary economic benefits

to the United Kingdom.

Let's say knickers to the pessimists...

This is about who we want to be, not just how we pay our way.

Sometimes, it's like the grey suits of the Establishment

are warning us we'd go broke if we leave,

and on the other side, rebels with a cause

just promise it would all be fine.

At the heart of this battle is a big question -

how would we trade with the rest of the EU if we leave?

And no-one's more worried about that

than what is, once more, one of our biggest industries.

Once upon a time, British cars were loved all over the world.

The Mini. Cheap on petrol - boop-boop!

British made - boop-boop-boop!

Yet by the '70s, it was a disaster -

strikes, bailouts,

and some motors, frankly, best forgotten.

But people who support our membership of the EU

say it's been a big part of bringing this trade back to life.

I worked in the UK car industry.

I saw its decline, and I've been part -

a small part, admittedly - of its continuing success.

I want to see that continue.

Ian Robertson is the Brit who sits on the board of BMW,

one of the foreign giants behind a revival that sees the industry

produce 1.5 million cars a year and employs 800,000 people.

He fears if we're not part of the EU,

trade barriers and costs could pile up.

In the situation where the UK was not in the EU,

then there could -

and I stress "could", because this is all hypothetical -

there could be tariffs put in place which would make

competitiveness more difficult.

And as a result, you know, in our operations here,

we'd have to work very, very hard to try and avoid the risk

of having more cost that, ultimately,

gets passed on to a consumer.

So cars could become more expensive,

because you might have to pay more to do business.

That could be one of the outcomes and, of course,

in our business, it's a very competitive industry.

Isn't the reality businesses on mainland Europe

would be banging down the doors of European politicians,

saying, "We want to sell to the UK"?

They don't want to lose their markets here, either.

I think you make a valid point,

but it would take 28 member states to agree

and, even in the most optimistic scenario,

that would take several years.

MARKET TRADERS CALL

Talking about tariffs and trade barriers

might sound a bit academic,

but it really does make a difference to the pound in your pocket.

Do you think, if we leave the EU, would we be better off or worse off?

What's your opinion?

-That is the million-dollar question, isn't it?

-It is.

Yeah, might be poorer, to begin with,

but I think it'll work out in the long run.

We were doing all right before we joined the EU.

If leaving the EU made it harder to sell British goods

to the rest of Europe, we all might pay a price.

All sorts of people are saying,

"There could be significant trade barriers."

Now, can you be straight with people

and say, despite your faith in Britain's ability to trade,

you can't guarantee any of it, can you?

Well, of course, no-one can prophesy or guarantee the future

and I think it's got to be vanishingly unlikely

that the EU would want to discriminate

against British products and services,

given the massive balance in their favour

at the moment, in trade - probably about £80 billion.

Why would they do it? It doesn't make any sense.

Well, I don't understand why any European country

would give to Britain a better deal than they give to themselves.

Why would they allow Britain to trade freely with Europe,

and all the jobs that that brings, if, at the same time,

we're not paying into the European Union budget

and accepting the free movement of people?

They couldn't possibly do that. That defies logic,

and you've heard very clearly from all these governments

that that wouldn't be the case.

So you can't have the benefits of being in the EU

without any of the costs,

and I think that's an unreal argument,

from the other side.

We're all just trying to figure it out.

I say stay with what we've got, we're doing all right,

and let's get on with it.

They'll still want to shop with us. They'll still want to buy off us.

We'll still want to buy off them.

They need our money, we need their money,

so it'll still be the same.

I've not made up my mind.

I'm still asking for divine inspiration.

The Remain camp might not have been able to call on God -

at least, not yet -

but they have had support from some friends in pretty high places.

A casual visit from the American President...

If one of our best friends is in an organisation

that enhances their influence and enhances their power

and enhances their economy, then I want them to stay in it.

..serious tones from the Governor of the Bank of England...

The recent behaviour of the foreign exchange market suggests that,

were the UK to vote to leave the EU,

sterling's exchange rate would fall further, perhaps sharply.

..and then Christine Lagarde,

the head of the International Monetary Fund.

If Britain chooses to leave the EU,

what do you think the consequences would be for the economy?

Well, if you assume that growth is most likely going to be down,

it means less jobs, less income,

higher prices.

That's the sort of immediate consequences that people

will perceive in the rather short term.

So that's why we're saying that it's going to be negative.

Now, how long it will be negative

will be a factor of the negotiations.

The longer the negotiations,

the more negative the impact will be.

Are you meaning two years, five years, ten years,

when it might really hurt families?

I think the hurting would come pretty soon,

but when I'm talking about a protracted period of time,

I'm talking about the time it will take to negotiate

those agreements with the rest of the world.

You're making a very strong warning today,

but the IMF's forecasts have been wrong before -

they've been wrong about other countries.

They've been wrong about what would happen in this country.

Why should people listen now?

First of all, everybody makes mistakes.

Second, we have probably got it right

much more often than we have got it wrong.

In the case of the negative consequences of Brexit,

if we were wrong,

there would be a vast majority of economists around

that would be wrong, too,

and when I look at all the assessments around...

..I don't see any positive. I see a lot of negative.

Hi, how are you doing, all right?

Very nice to see you again.

But like in many pubs across the country,

the landlord here is having none of it.

I wasn't planning on having one till this evening.

Are the Bank of England, much of the big business world,

the Treasury, the International Monetary Fund,

are they all just plain wrong?

They're just talking bollocks.

SHE LAUGHS

We had the same thing with the euro, you have to remember,

where the great and the good were very much in favour of it.

Did they understand it? No.

Were they right? No. Are they right now? No.

Tim Martin's not exactly your typical landlord.

He built up Wetherspoon's pub chain from scratch.

Now it turns over more than £1 billion a year

and has 35,000 staff.

He's given 200 grand of his own cash to the Vote Leave campaign.

How can you be sure that Britain out of the EU

would be able to keep access

to the rest of the European Union to trade with?

Because one of the things they don't teach you

at Harvard Business School comes into play - common sense.

We buy a lot more from Europe than we sell to Europe.

I know, from running a business,

that that means that we can do a hell of a good deal.

But if, by any chance, we can't buy BMWs from Germany

because, on a point of principle,

they don't want to sell to one of their biggest customers,

we'll just have to buy a Lexus from Japan,

or a Volvo from Sweden.

I drive one myself, it's very good.

But common sense, as you suggest, is not the same as a guarantee

that our important trading relationships

would still be in place.

You can't guarantee that, can you?

We can guarantee within an independent Britain that we

can make our own laws.

That's a guarantee.

With Europe, with laws being made that we have no or very

little control over, that's the danger.

Do his regulars think he's right, though?

My view is, always, it's best to be on the inside,

trying to influence things, than it is to be outside and be able

to look at it and say, "I wish we could still have some say."

So, I'm very believing - the devil you know,

and I'm definitely a staying in person.

I think we'd be better off without.

I think we're strong enough to sustain ourselves,

without having to worry about other countries

and bailing Greece out or helping out these people.

We're fine now. We're fully functional on our own.

And that's the instinct that could take us out.

Britain on her own, great again,

escaping a failing European Union that's simply had its day.

So could leaving be the start of something big?

So why couldn't we just leave and be free, rediscover some of our

buccaneering trading traditions and head out into the big, wide world?

Those campaigning to leave say if we've got the guts to go,

Britain could get its mojo back.

This is the launch of a campaign for freedom.

And it's a chance for us to believe in ourselves.

Our country has tremendous, untapped potential,

which independence would unleash.

For some British entrepreneurs, leaving the EU would mean

saying goodbye to hassle and hello to new prosperity.

Instead of looking at the fear of, oh, we can't do a change, or we're

going to be little Englanders - no, we're going to be Great Britainers.

We will be Great Britain with all of the world.

That could be the east or the west, the north and the south,

the whole lot.

Pete Chadha deals in data. His IT business in Surrey has 30 staff.

He reckons EU rules just can't keep up with his business,

that's changing all the time.

There is a proposed new directive in my area, on data protection,

which will affect £15 billion of extra burden on the UK economy,

as said by Deloitte, not by me, that's a Deloitte prediction.

I think, outside of the EU, we'll be free of the red tape

and smaller businesses can be more agile

without the burden of thinking,

"Oh, what does Brussels want us to do next?"

We'll form new relationships with Europe itself, but around the world,

with India, with China, with countries in Africa,

with the States and Canada. We can do it all in this country.

And the boss of one of Britain's most iconic brands feels

exactly the same.

Tate & Lyle Sugars have been refining by the Thames

for more than 130 years.

But our membership of the EU costs them dear.

For most ships that bring their raw cane sugar to the

dock from outside the EU, they have to pay a handsome fee.

The EU is the biggest drag on our business's competitiveness

because of the way it regulates us.

The last boat that was here, we paid around 3.5 million euros

on import tariffs to the European Union to bring that sugar in.

In contrast, our competitors, the beet sugar producers in Europe,

get around 160 million euros a year in subsidy.

It's almost as if we send the money to Brussels

and they redistribute it to subsidise our competitors.

Britain is a member of the EU.

We can, in theory, make a difference to those decisions.

We can get our way,

we can persuade other people to see our point of view.

12 years ago, before I started working in the cane sugar industry,

that's what I thought, but what you realise is that

if your issue is in the minority in Europe, you can never win.

So, for instance, there are 19 countries in Europe that grow

beet sugar and only really two or three that produce cane sugar.

So every time any type of British government has gone to

fight our corner in Brussels, no matter how hard they try,

they always lose, because the numbers are against them.

That's fine for British sugar beet producers in other

parts of the country,

but Tate & Lyle thinks it might risk the whole refinery's future.

I'm really worried for the jobs and the livelihoods

and the families of the 850 people that work here in this plant.

We need Europe to see that this is unfair

and to do something about it before we get to that point.

What would you say to people who might suggest that you're

just complaining about the rule that hits your business,

and basically everybody's got to deal with that kind of red tape,

that's just how the world is?

What I'd say to that is that I accept this is a very

specific piece of regulation that affects us and the 850 people here

in a very specific way, but it's really important that people hear

examples of regulation like this from Europe, good and bad, so that

they know what to do when they go to the ballot box on June 23rd.

I'm not naive. I know that people in the UK aren't going to

vote on the Tate & Lyle Sugars question, but I do think it's

really important people hear specific examples like this.

Brussels' rules and regulations clearly cost Tate & Lyle dear...

..but is it fair to say Brussels' bureaucrats hold the whole

economy back?

Justin King ran the supermarket Sainsbury's for a decade.

I think quite a lot is laid at the door of Europe which isn't

really their fault, and much of the regulation

and so-called red tape is necessary.

Why should we fight against regulation that makes

products that we make and sell safer?

That's something that Europe does a lot about.

If you look at my own history in food, the packaging regulation

and how the ingredients of food and allergens are communicated.

That's all European regulation.

I really struggle to see that that's bad news for consumers.

So I think this idea that, uniquely, Europe does bad regulation

and that Westminster would do good regulation,

well, there's no evidence to support that, in my view.

And one man's pernickety rule is another political opportunity.

It is absurd that we are told that you cannot sell

bananas in bunches of more than two or three bananas.

You cannot sell bananas with abnormal curvature of the fingers.

Why should they tell us...

Why should they tell us how powerful our vacuum cleaners should be?

Can I have this very big bunch, please?

Lovely. Thank you.

As you'll know if you've done the weekly shop

at any time in living memory,

you can buy very big bunches of bananas,

but the reason... Thank you.

..these have become an unlikely political symbol in this whole scrap

is that there are regulations about bananas for wholesalers

and they are exactly the kind of rule and regulation

that the out campaign would love to get rid of.

The UK, at the moment, inside the EU,

is one of the least regulated economies in the world.

I know that there are some areas, some sectors

in which EU regulation can be burdensome

but, overall, the UK is a relatively low regulation economy

and I think it's inevitable that, if the UK wants

to have close trade relations with the EU, which we surely would,

then we still have to accept a substantial amount of EU regulation

in the same way that Norway and Switzerland,

other countries that do quite a lot of trade with the EU,

continue to do so.

So I don't really see this future for the UK

as a much less regulated economy than it is now.

That would be a hard one to manage.

Godspeed, John Glenn.

And some of the biggest businesses in the world

say the EU does the opposite of hold them back.

It's about freedom.

Pardon the gag -

freedom to boldly go where none have gone before.

Welcome to Mars.

Well, OK, it's actually a warehouse in Stevenage, in Hertfordshire,

but this is Bruno, the ExoMars planetary rover,

designed to hunt for signs of life on Mars.

It's been made by Airbus,

a company that's based in France but that has 15,000 staff in the UK,

and right in the middle of all of this is one big question -

would these kinds of investments still come to the UK

if we left the European Union?

Airbus builds almost everything that can fly,

from mighty A380s

to satellites,

and they're so worried about leaving the EU

they wrote individual letters to all of their staff to say so.

Our large aircraft, they're built all around the world

and they're all brought together in Toulouse,

and the EU really helps us to do that

in a seamless way throughout Europe

and so anything which detracts from that is bad news.

And how worried would you be, or how worried are you, about the business

if we leave the EU?

It will certainly be... It's certainly harder to do business

when you're crossing the EU boundary.

We benefit from that free movement of labour,

of goods, of capital, of ideas

by being able to work together inside the EU.

As soon as you go outside of the EU,

then, by definition, there's going to be changes to that

and that will affect our future decisions.

So, to really spell it out, you are clear

that leaving the EU could see jobs go from the UK

to other parts of the world?

Well, next time there's a big decision,

we really have to have that investment

and without that investment, the jobs go elsewhere.

Britain's membership of the EU is one but far from the only reason

that investors want to spend their cash here.

Brits are good at some pretty clever stuff,

our language, our time zone, the people,

it's a pretty nice place to do business,

but even some of those who want us to leave the EU

acknowledge it could be pretty bumpy to begin with.

There's absolutely no doubt that Brexit

is positive for the economy, for jobs and investment

but there's always the possibility, given what's been said,

that there could be some near-term uncertainty.

The best way to think of that is a Nike swoosh

in the sense there might be some uncertainty where confident is hit,

it doesn't mean jobs are lost,

and that's the sort of downward part of the swoosh.

Before then, confidence returns,

people see that Britain is better able to position itself globally

and the economy picks up the further ahead one looks.

But here's one big catch -

what we make and sell matters,

but what we do and sell matters even more.

Services like banking, accountancy, advertising,

that's where the country really makes its money.

They're more than three-quarters of the economy

and if we leave the EU,

selling to the rest of the market could be tricky.

Come with me to one of the City's greatest institutions

and one of its most famous buildings.

This lot have been trading for more than 300 years.

This is Lloyd's of London,

where brokers offered risks for underwriters to insure,

and these men, members of Lloyd's,

are still brokers and underwriters.

Lloyd's are in the risk business

and they fear, if we leave, the odds for the economy don't look good.

The continental European insurance market is really important

and as a whole trading block,

it actually makes up the world's largest insurance market.

It provides us one regulatory regime where we can easily do business

in all of the other European countries.

So you're saying, at the moment,

you have one set of rules and regulations

and, if we left the EU,

-there might be 27 more sets of rules and regulations.

-Yes.

So, if the UK were to leave the EU, for Lloyd's,

we would have to individually negotiate with each country

how we could trade in that country.

That means there could be numerous different types of regimes

we have to operate in,

different regulations we have to comply with,

different standards we have to comply with.

A very costly way of doing business.

Is it, though, something that's an inconvenience for a few years

or a fundamental threat to your business?

A potential departure from the EU

is a fundamental threat to the Lloyd's market.

We're in the risk business so we're obviously making contingency plans

should there be a vote to leave,

but it is a serious risk to our business right now.

Many of the City's big names believe we'd be crazy

to take the risk of leaving the EU,

from HSBC to Goldman Sachs.

But there are some who refuse to join the herd.

There's absolutely no doubt

that London will remain the financial centre of Europe.

London's competition is no longer Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam,

as it used to be in the past.

London's competition is New York, Singapore, Hong Kong.

London and the City needs to position itself globally.

But if the majority view in the City is right,

earnings would shrink if we left the EU.

You might be happy to say goodbye to a few bankers

but, if it happened, the whole country would be worse off.

At the moment,

the UK is the business and financial services centre of Europe

and that has spread prosperity throughout the UK.

It's not just the people who work in that industry,

but it's the spending which they do.

The spending in shops, the spending in restaurants,

the houses which they buy

that spreads incomes and jobs across the UK

and if that industry shrinks, and I think it would if the UK leaves EU,

then the economy as a whole would be weaker,

not just those who work in that industry

but quite widely across the UK.

Business isn't the only thing

that can move freely around the EU, though.

So can people.

Under what's called the free movement of labour,

we can work anywhere we want in the union

and people from all the other 27 countries can do the same here,

and they have...

in huge numbers.

In his Somerset dairy packing plant,

around one in eight of Richard Clothier's workforce are immigrants,

many from Eastern Europe.

I worry because I've been in here, like, 12 years

so I'm a citizen of the UK but I haven't got a British passport

so I don't know what's going to happen.

If the UK will step out of the EU,

it could be worse for people like me, myself.

So, yeah, I do worry about it.

It depends what's going to happen to people like me.

You're talking about operations

that have to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

and when you've got very low levels of population in rural areas,

it's very difficult to find people that want to work

outside of nine to five, five days of the week.

So, without migrant workers, you know,

the lines would stop, unfortunately.

At their hovercraft firm,

Emma and Russ Pullen also employ a couple of Eastern Europeans,

but Emma would much rather see Brits in work.

I'm hoping, and we all hope, that, coming out of the EU,

we can spend more money on apprenticeships

and get more people that are out there

into the jobs where they're needed.

Let's see if we can train our own workforce up

to get back into roles that we can fill.

At the same time, we're not going to go open the door on the 24th

and kick everyone out across the Channel.

But even Christian from Poland, who's made Kent his home,

wants out of the EU.

We should leave united Europe

just because there's too much immigration and not legal

and I think it's enough, to be honest.

I mean, as an immigrant, as well.

So, if we allow to take more people in UK,

we're going to be in big trouble, to be honest.

In the big picture,

most experts believe immigration has been good for the economy,

but there is some evidence that it's held wages down

for some of the lowest paid

and, broadly, the less well-off you are,

the more likely you are to want to leave.

With immigration at the front of many voters' minds,

the Leave campaign wants you to see this

as a fight between haves and have-nots.

They claim the EU's been good for fat cats

but has left many people behind.

Win that argument and, when it comes to the vote,

all bets are off.

You've characterised this as a battle

between the elites and the ordinary man.

You're part of the elite, though, aren't you?

It is, in a sense, a struggle

between people who want to take back control

and a small group of people

who do very well out of the current system

and who are able...

And who know Christine Lagarde and can go mwah-mwah with her on...

you know, at Davos or whatever it happens to be.

Of course they're going to be in favour of the system,

but there are plenty of people

who want to see proper democratic control,

who want the democracy of their country restored,

and feel it's weird that it is simply being given away

for no particular gain.

Boris Johnson told us it's a struggle between the ordinary man

and people who go to Davos and know Christine Lagarde,

who greet her saying mwah-mwah, kissing on both cheeks.

Well, look, as I say, the people who are the Leave campaigners

are not going to be the people who pay the economic price if we leave.

It will be the ordinary working people of this country

who see their jobs threatened,

who see the value of their family home go down,

who see their wages hit,

who don't have the certainty of living in a country

that's trading with the world.

They are the people who are going to pay the price,

the working people of Britain,

if we vote to leave and the economy suffers.

There is some evidence some people's wages have suffered

as a result of immigration.

Aren't they entitled to be a bit fed up about that?

Well, of course, when it comes to immigration,

there are very understandable concerns that people have

and that's why we want to have immigration controls

so you can't just come to this country

and get welfare payments and the like,

you have to put in before you get out,

but you don't control immigration by wrecking the economy.

I mean, that would be a crazy approach to take.

And in the last week, David Cameron and George Osborne

have gone to DEFCON 1 with their warnings of the economic shock

we'd face if we choose to go.

The shock to our economy after leaving Europe

would tip the country into recession.

House prices would be hit by at least 10% and as much as 18%.

The stakes couldn't be higher. The risks couldn't be greater.

It would be a DIY recession.

Across Britain, as many as 820,000 jobs could be lost.

It is the self-destruct option.

If you believed it would be a catastrophe,

surely it was terribly irresponsible,

if it really would hit people as badly as you suggest,

to offer this vote in the first place.

It's not irresponsible to ask the British people for their opinion.

It's not irresponsible to trust the people

with the future of this country

and I think the British people will take a mature and sensible judgment

that we are better off remaining in this reformed European Union,

that we don't want to take a leap in the dark,

that we don't want all the uncertainty and the risk

and the economic cost that would come from leaving the EU.

Donnez-moi un break, as we say in Brussels.

Here we are now with the most extraordinary avalanche

of scaremongering, a sort of Himalayan snow job of statistics

about how things are going to go wrong.

If that's what you think,

how will you be able to trust your colleagues in future?

Look, I think we've got to be very clear what's going on here, Laura.

They are obviously determined to try to win this referendum

by one means or another.

And I think that the means they have chosen,

because the focus groups and the polling seem to indicate that

that's the most productive line of attack, is to escalate the risk.

And not so long ago, the Prime Minister

was rather more relaxed about it all.

Now, I'm not saying for one moment

that Britain couldn't survive

outside the European Union.

Of course we could. We are a great country.

The question is whether we'd be more successful in than out.

Whether being in the European Union adds to our economic security

or detracts from it.

Ultimately, it will be the judgment of the British people

in the referendum I promised.

The politicians disagree on the risks and the statistics.

They always do.

But the balance of evidence from the economists and number-crunchers

does suggest that leaving the EU would cost the British economy.

In the longer run,

we will be a bit worse off than we otherwise would be.

Now, we're a rich country,

we can afford to grow a bit more slowly than we otherwise would.

Most forecasts don't expect there to be a very big

and very prolonged recession, this is something that's survivable.

This is something that's not disastrous.

But it is something that I think's important to take into account

when making the choice about our future in the EU

and whether that cost is worth the benefits

that might accrue in other parts of the debate.

With it all so uncertain, the way you choose to vote

might depend on how you feel about taking a risk.

What would you like?

Right, OK. Well, I like the sound of Sacred Trust.

'Whichever way we go, it could be a bit of a gamble.'

Do you think it's a risk?

Well, nobody knows one way or the other, do they?

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

-All right, I'm going to do each way on Sacred Trust.

-Each way.

-Yeah.

-250 each way, he's sixth.

'The Remain side want you to think coming out is an almighty gamble...'

-TANNOY:

-Outside line, Sacred Trust...

Come on!

'..a gamble with your job, your mortgage, your future.'

Oh!

Nearly, nearly.

'But what if staying in the EU was a gamble, too?'

The EU is in trouble.

Some believe its economic problems are so fundamental,

the euro may yet collapse.

Hi, good afternoon.

Well, we've got some important work to do today and tomorrow

and it's going to be hard.

Part of the plan to keep the currency together is

tighter common controls on their economies -

moving closer together, not further apart.

We're not in the euro, but we can't escape its effects.

The EU is moving in fundamentally the wrong direction.

As you know, the euro is in dire trouble.

They're trying to prop it up.

What's happening in Greece is by no means solved.

The Italian banks are basically bust.

They're going to have to go forward with measures

to lock Europe together ever tighter.

It's been clear that we can't get out from under

the consequences of that.

They are going to want to create a fiscal union

in which the Single Market institutions would be used,

Britain could not escape and could not escape paying for it.

Do you accept there are some risks of staying in the EU?

No, I don't.

I think Britain has the best of both worlds.

We're in the Single Market, that's the crucial free-trade zone

that supports a lot of jobs in Britain.

But we are not in the euro single currency.

We're not in the single border area that have caused these problems

on the continent of Europe.

It's a complete illusion to think that we would somehow

protect ourselves by cutting ourselves off

from the continent of Europe.

A huge amount of our jobs and prosperity depends on that.

I'd rather do what Britain has always done,

which is get stuck in, fight our corner,

win our arguments, win our battles.

We should have self-confidence in our country's ability to shape

the world and shape our continent,

rather than pulling up the drawbridge.

That's always been a disaster for Britain when we've done that

in the past, and we shouldn't do it in the future.

Are you willing to take a punt on leaving?

I'm very much like that.

It's a hard decision to make. It's been really tough.

Why do you think it's difficult?

Because you get so many scare stories from each side

and it's a decision, if you get it wrong, both sides say

the implications if you get it wrong are huge.

What's difficult about this decision,

that we have to be honest about,

is that it is all a bit of a gamble.

You're being asked to choose between a hypothetical universe

outside the European Union

or staying in something that is already changing.

There is a lot that no politician and no expert can tell you.

There's a lot that we just don't know.

So without certainty, you're left with a choice between two visions...

..of how we might win or lose.

Well, if we vote to leave the EU, the country will be poorer

and the families in the country will be poorer.

In the short term, we'd tip into recession

and half a million jobs or more would be lost.

And in the longer term,

families would be worse off because we'd be trading less and

doing less business with the rest of the world, and the overwhelming

consensus is that Britain would be worse off if we left the EU.

I think we'd be richer, I think we'd be more prosperous,

we'd be a more dynamic economy.

And there's all sorts of ways in which the EU holds us back.

And it would be a massive opportunity for us

to reorientate Britain.

I think it's almost inevitable that in the near term,

the first two, three years or so, that the UK would be poorer.

The economy would be weaker if we leave the EU.

But if you look ahead ten, 20 or 30 years,

it would depend much more on what policies the UK puts in place,

either inside the EU or if we're outside the EU.

It's quite possible for the UK economy to prosper outside the EU

if we manage our affairs well.

In just over three weeks,

we'll wake up and the choice will have been made.

Our decision will shape not just our own futures,

but our children's and grandchildren's, too.

If you wake up on June 24th and we've voted to leave the EU,

what will you feel?

I'll feel good.

I'd quote Norman Lamont from leaving the exchange rate mechanism in 1992,

"I'll be singing in the bath."

-What will you sing?

-Well, La Marseillaise?

If we vote to leave, and I hear it on the radio in the morning,

my gut reaction will be, you know, a bit of fear, uncertainty

and quite worried, to be honest.

On the 24th, I hope I wake up with a really big headache

and I hope that we are having... You know, there should be

parties on the streets because it's our independence day.

Personally, independent from any, you know, economic analysis

and financial consequences, I would be sad.

How would you celebrate?

With some...some produce from our friends and partners

-over the Channel.

-French Champagne?

Probably. Which will be just as cheap as it is now.

Obviously I'd be very disappointed

and very anxious about what the country faced,

the enormous uncertainty which would, of course,

would hit within hours of us voting to leave the EU.

And, unfortunately, there will be a heavy price to be paid for that.

Any election is asking you to take a punt about the future.

In this campaign, claims of disaster or opportunity,

well, they're punts, too.

Guesses made by very smart people, but guesses nonetheless.

It's true most of the evidence suggests we'd be worse off

in the short term if we choose to leave.

But when it comes to the years and decades ahead,

it's much harder to predict.

How we earn our living as a country is important, of course,

but it's up to all of us to mull that over

with the other parts of being in the European club.

Not just whether we're richer or poorer,

but who we are and who's in charge.