Why Lib Dem proposals to cut income tax are not feasible - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Tony Galbraith, Brough, East Yorkshire.

You report (The Yorkshire Post, September 23) that at their recent annual conference, the Liberal Democrats adopted a policy of cuts to income tax, paid for by growth generated by the UK rejoining the EU. The proposal strikes me as a non-starter.

The Government here proclaimed that the UK had the highest growth rate of any G7 country earlier this year. That must mean more growth than France, Germany or Italy. That demonstrates that membership of the EU is no guarantee of high growth, and I would expect a fall in UK growth if we were to rejoin.

You do not report what assumption, if any, the Liberal Democrats made about the annual payment the UK would be obliged to make into the EU budget if we did rejoin. At the time of the referendum in 2016, there was a net payment of about £10bn per annum into the EU. No-one knows what the payment might be if we did rejoin but given the inflation in recent years and the near certain loss of the rebate won by Margaret Thatcher, I estimate it as a net £20bn payment each year.