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		</div><p>A group of Brexit-backing economists have urged the British government to abolish all trade barriers after leaving the European Union despite previously admitting it would &#8220;mostly eliminate manufacturing&#8221; in the UK.</p>
<p>The 16-strong Economists for Free Trade, led by Cardiff University economics Professor Patrick Minford, claimed abolishing barriers such as tariffs could boost the economy by £135bn a year, giving households a £5,000-a-year boost. The plan was dismissed by the Open Britain campaign group as &#8220;absurd&#8221; and a blueprint for &#8220;economic suicide&#8221;.</p>
<p>But report author Professor Minford said: &#8220;&#8216;Hard Brexit&#8217; is good for the UK economically while &#8216;soft Brexit&#8217; leaves us as badly off as before. &#8216;Hard&#8217; is economically much superior to &#8216;soft&#8217;. &#8220;Backers of &#8216;Soft Brexit&#8217; say it would preserve jobs, but what they really mean is that it would preserve existing jobs by stopping competition from home and abroad.</p>
<p>&#8220;As every schoolboy knows and every politician ought to know, this aborting of competition reduces jobs in the long run. &#8220;Competition increases productivity and so employment because higher wages paid for by higher productivity makes work more attractive.</p>
<p>&#8220;Competition also increases our general welfare because we are producing more.&#8221; Commenting on behalf of the Open Britain campaign group for close ties with the EU, Labour MP Alison McGovern said: &#8220;All anyone needs to know about this absurd plan is that its own author admits it would &#8216;mostly eliminate manufacturing&#8217; in the UK.</p>
<p>&#8220;Unilaterally scrapping our tariffs without achieving similar reductions in the tariff rates of other countries would see Britain swamped with imports, leaving our manufacturers and farmers unable to compete.<br />
&#8220;The levels of bankruptcy and unemployment, especially in industry and agriculture, would sky-rocket.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a project of economic suicide, not prosperity. No responsible government would touch this report with a barge pole as a source of ideas for our future trade policy.&#8221;</p>
<p>Professor Minford put forward his ideas in the run-up to June 2016&#8217;s EU referendum, although he admitted in a column for the Sun: &#8220;Over time, if we left the EU, it seems likely that we would mostly eliminate manufacturing, leaving mainly industries such as design, marketing and hi-tech. But this shouldn&#8217;t scare us.&#8221;</p>
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