That part of Europe is pretty fertile. I've not looked at the link, but are the exports exports out of the EU or exports to the neighbouring countries? The UK and those European countries are and have always been trading nations and have been trading globaly for literally thousands of years, so they have experience of trading built into their DNA, great communication links and crutially, are situated in a good geographic place for global trading.

On the National Insurance tax, it's just another tax and goes into the pot along with all of the other taxes and isn't ring fenced for the NHS.