Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I don't understand why the common rulebook, regulatory alignment, is such a big deal anyway. UK businesses would mostly keep to EU regulation since the EU is, by far, the biggest single regulatory block we export too and given it's geographic proximity would remain so. Even if we reverted to WTO this would likely be the case. Other visions of Brexit had regulatory alignment as a prerequisite for any trade deal.
If the country is going to get obsessed over regulation of goods then any trade deal would be a pain since that's a key element.
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My reading of the common rulebook is that the aim is for a 'single market lite' where all goods produced for and by the UK market are, by default, good for the EU market too. For manufactured goods, not such a biggie as declarations of conformity cover this anyway (though there is the issue of who approves CE marking for example)
It's a much bigger deal in agriculture, where adherence to phytosanitary and veterinary standards are an issue and each shipment would require examination without a common standard. The northern irish dairy industry was very concerned and very noisy about this!