Economic growth comes with closer integration with your neighbours  Economic integration with neighbours is the best way to economic growth. Neighbouring countries are almost always the countries a nation trades most with; in the UK’s case the EU accounts for 44.6% of exports and 53.2% of imports. [1] It is therefore in the UK’s interest to increase integration to encourage this trade. Throughout the world the trend is towards regional integration rather than away from it with regional organisations from Mercosur in South America to ASEAN in South East Asia encouraging integration.  [1] Office for National Statistics, ‘How important is the European Union to UK trade and investment?’, 26 June 2015,