[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by martyh

My god man everytime you post you make it sound as if trading outside of the EU simply cannot be done ,i'm wondering how the vast majority of the world that exists outside of the EU actually manages on a day to day basis .I think your just scared to cut the apron strings that are the EU ,don't panic ,it will be fine ,we will manage just like all the other trading outside of the EU and EEA do

It's way easier to go without something entirely than to lose it. We keep hearing we're a trading, maritime nation, we'll be just a maritime nation.

I have no idea why you're so blase about this unless you genuinely have no idea what it all entails. If we cock it up, and all signs are that we're doing our utmost to, it really won't be fine. The Tories in charge of Brexit have made it abundantly clear that they have no idea what they are doing and would rather play to the audience. Businesses have a duty to their shareholders to start looking at relocating some of their enterprise right now.

We'll go from having free trade in goods and services with the EU-27 and nominally free trade with a collection of others to having free trade with no-one, no protection from the WTO, no structure to trading, and being unable to strike free trade agreements for a period. This may just make businesses somewhat more reluctant to do business here.

Free trade agreements aren't made for fun. The WTO doesn't exist for fun. Clearly countries enter into such things for a reason, and anything that makes life harder will cost money.

These aren't my opinions, they are the opinions of experts from constitutional and trade law, and it's way past project fear time now. I appreciate that no-one cares about experts anymore, just their own ill-informed opinions, but it's always worth reading them so you know what to ignore.

We can blow sunshine up our own arses and pretend that we're this magical, unicorn tipped miracle that doesn't need any of these because we've taken back control or we can get our heads out of said arses and perhaps encourage politicians to take theirs out too and get the best deal for the country rather than whatever they thing will win them the most votes.

I've pretty much given up on any prospect of being in the EEA now with Labour deciding to play UKIP probably putting an end to it, but an abrupt end to our current arrangements with no transition is, according to pretty much everyone bar politicians, a bad idea.

About the only thing we can do to ameliorate this is to render the years of austerity pointless by going on a spending and tax cutting spree and running deficits, which will be awesome. Over half a decade of austerity made pointless by a vote to self-harm.

---------- Post added at 22:49 ---------- Previous post was at 22:40 ----------

Originally Posted by ntluser

I was thinking about deals post Brexit. Once we leave the EU we can trade with those who wish to trade with us as we are no longer EU members. I can't see Germany and others not wanting to trade.

We can trade with them now. We just can't strike any trade deals until we've sorted our membership of the WTO.

https://www.ft.com/content/5741129a-...f-79eb4891c97d

How does the UK establish itself as an independent WTO member?

Each WTO member has a “schedule” of commitments for each of the agreements — including agriculture, industrial goods and services — setting out the terms on which it trades. Member states of the EU are bound by EU-wide schedules, negotiated by the bloc on their behalf. The UK could simply copy the EU commitments and slide seamlessly into membership exclusively in its own right, as long as no other WTO member objects.

Such states as Argentina can veto our attempts at joining the WTO. They have absolutely no reason to make this easy for us. We have absolutely no leverage with them.

See previous regarding Germany - need a deal with the entire EU-27.

What about services, where the UK is the world’s third-largest exporter?

The UK could extract its own existing promises from within the EU’s schedule and turn them into standalone commitments. This would allow, say, foreign consultants or engineers to operate in the UK, though in fact the degree of liberalisation in the WTO services agreement is low and the EU’s schedule is riddled with exceptions for individual member countries.

Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy and a former EU trade negotiator, says: “In theory it’s not hard to create a services schedule for the UK out of the EU schedule. But while it’s intellectually quite easy it’s an excruciating legal process.”

Mr Lee-Makiyama notes that it took five years to integrate Bulgaria and Romania into the EU services schedule after they joined the bloc. While some trade officials say it may be easier to create a schedule for a leaving member than one arriving, they seem to agree the process can be measured in years rather than months.

The politicians claiming this is a copy-paste job, entirely under our control once we leave are, simply, lying.