[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

The Withdrawal Agreement as amended by Boris is as good as agreed and will be rubber stamped by EU leaders at the next summit.

The trade deal will most definitely not take 10 years to get done - how do you make that out? Boris reckons he can do the deal within 12 months and I think that is perfectly do-able, just as he was able to get rid of the backstop in a matter of weeks.

It will, however, take a few years to get the other deals outside the EU signed off, and they will enhance the opportunities available to us. This, the free ports, our escape from the suffocating EU which charges countries high tariff rates, and the 'no tariff' policy that the government will introduce are just some of the advantages that we will be able to secure in future years.

The trade deals we strike will be much more relevant to this country's needs (rather than diluted to the lowest common denominator of all 28 countries of the EU) and we will be able to shake free of the debilitating and disincentivising employment legislation of the EU.

---------- Post added at 19:04 ---------- Previous post was at 19:01 ----------



Juncker is old news now, Seph. It won't take anywhere near as long for us to get a trade deal with the EU since we are already aligned with them.

Unfortunately, OB, the 27 are likely to get rough. There's fishing rights (a totemic issue), competitive advantage that they don't want us to have through our less restrictive practices and so on. In that respect, John Redwood is right - we don't want our hands and whatsit all strapped behind our backs because France is scared stiff of us.