Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
If these matters are handled properly there's no reason why the economic benefit of enhanced trade with the rest of the world won't in turn dwarf anything lost directly (if indeed that winds up happening) as a result of a different relationship with the EU.
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There are a bunch of reasons why, at least in the short and medium terms, there is no way that's going to be the case.
Not least because there's every indication matters aren't being handled properly and economic policy is taking a back seat to immigration.
We currently have trade agreements with the EU 27 + 53 other nations. March 2019 we'll have trade agreements with zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual...tion_agreement need establishing even where there's no free trade in progress.
We need to get our schedules with the WTO sorted, which includes our shares of quotas, requiring agreement from the EU 27 and every other WTO member. That or become a 'bastion of free trade' with no restrictions to trade at all and watch as bits of our economy are wiped out by those who can produce comparable products for a fraction of the cost - even with tariffs.
The idea that we're going to roll smoothly out of the EU and into a panacea of prosperity is beyond comedy and the government aren't helping with a string of anti-business policies.
Hopefully of course the current rhetoric is just that and a decent solution that protects British businesses can be found. The Conservative Party Conference has sounded more like a UKIP conference.
Can't accuse them of being corporatist though, just yet anyway. That comes with a bonfire of workers' rights later.