Europe Minister and Tory Expert on EU warns of decade of economic uncertainty with Brexit

The UK would face a decade of massive economic uncertainty with potentially disastrous consequences for business and the, pound if it were to vote to leave the EU, the Europe minister,  David Lidington says.  Mr Lidington has served a record period of six years in his post and has more experience of EU negotiations than most.
David Cameron agreed that Brexit would create “huge amounts of uncertainty” and added: “It would be our children’s futures on the table if we were to roll the dice.”
Echoing a view shared by the prime minister and George Osborne, Lidington said that, according to the EU rulebook, the UK would be cut adrift from from European treaties, and therefore the single market, two years after a vote to leave, which would be before it would have had time to negotiate replacement trade deals. “Trade deals between the EU and other countries and bilateral trade deals of any type normally take six, seven, eight years and counting,” Lidington said. “Everything we take for granted about access to the single market – trade taking place without customs checks or paperwork at national frontiers, the right of British citizens to go and live in Spain or France – those would all be up in the air. It is massive. It is massive what is at risk.