I agree, although it depends on the products being manufactured and the longevity of those items.
Even with products manufactured in highly automated factories, there are other costs to consider.

The biggest costs in a country with limit available land is the cost of said land and the council taxes associated with owning said land.

Because no previous member has left and survived once one does it will open the flood gates

And the investment in state of the art machinery, which may or may not receive substantial government funding, China for example.

Chinese manufacturing is unbelievable, in the way that they will invest to get a project off the ground.
They are driven to try and achieve double digit growth year on year, substantially helped by their government and then you have to contend with $60/70 per MONTH wages for their employees.

Following this model they have sucked the life out of UK and US manufacturing and I genuinely dont think we are in any position to compete.
They (The Chinese) have also begun to invest heavily in Africa, which will help to prolong their dominance as a manufacturing powerhouse.
You hen have India and Bangladesh for more labour intensive manufacturing, which again, we just cannot hope to compete with.
WE are strong (ish) in engineering and very innovative as a nation but, this wont pull huge numbers of manufacturing jobs back to the UK, whether we are in or out of The EU.

This country manufactures much more than most of recognises - suggest you watch the last episode of the Top Gear series where they lined up just the vehicles we manufacture in the UK. We are a strong manufacturing country - especially vehicles - these skills are transferable to suggest not is mad - the EU will not be the end of the this country economically it will be the making of it.

I hope you are right but, why would we need to be outside the EU to take these opportunities.
What exactly has been stopping us from "taking advantage" previously.
Also, the car industry we have relies on export to the EU, which will necessarily become more difficult, and there is a very real possibility that the "foreign" owned companies will re locate to a more "strong and stable" environment and take away any risks associated with manufacture outside the EU.
Nissan were made some promises by the May government to secure that they gave the UK the "next model" but what happens next time, when we will be outside the market that they want to "service".

Greenland left the eu because greenlands only industry fishing was legitimately looted under Europe law. So Greenland left the eu they now have control over fishing and the country is flourishing.
Admittedly Greenland is only a tiny country but they were a member of the eu and it was a disaster.

So far, the two ringing endorsements for life outside the EU are an episode of Top Gear, and Greenland.

I feel better already.

We also import a lot of vehicles so it could be that European manufacturers will open plants here to satisfy the demand for their vehicles?

Historically we have built markets within Europe because its closer - those skills that developed those markets are going to disappear when we leave they will put to use finding alternatives I would have thought?

I cannot understand why people think the UK is poor commercially that any prosperity we have is because of Europe and not because of the participants in the UK that makes these things happen.

The world will still go on turning, no doubt about it and we are not talking life and death here.

The issue surely is whether as a nation and as members of the public, will we be better off on the outside ?

I fully understand the need to control mass migration and without doubt there has to be a change.(although numbers may reduce from the EU, there seems a strong likelihood that they will increase from elsewhere in the world, particularly Asia).

Regarding the potential new, untapped markets.
Where are they and why the hell haven't we done anything about developing them already.
We shouldn't be losing or diminishing one market and replacing it with another, we should be getting the best for the UK across the board.

Almost 12 months on from the vote, ALL of the talk is about survival and not prosperity and of course our trade with Europe larger then with other countries, it's on the doorstep and there are no trade barriers.

You may be right about the possibility of The Germans setting up manufacturing plant over here but, there haven't been any noises along those lines yet.

We may prosper outside the EU but, we weren't exactly suffering within it ??

The UK has rolled the dice and gambled, when there was no need to jeopardise where we were.
Instead, we should have worked from within to improve those areas that we were not happy with and not throw our teddy out of the pram.