Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Likewise, the EU have always stated (since 2016) the importance of the Single Market, and would resist any efforts to undermine this - the only real mystery is why anyone on this side of the channel is still blind to it... 
It may have been because BoJo said back in 2016 we would still have access to the Single Market?
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-br...on-idUKKCN0ZC1 |
You’re being somewhat loose with your definitions. Unintentionally I’m sure.
“Access to” can mean almost anything. WTO is access to the single market. *No* access to the single market would be a complete ban on British goods and services being sold into the EEA, which is clearly an absurd proposition that would never happen.
However even if we allow that by “access to” Boris was talking about “preferential access to” (and that’s by no means certain, because a lot of prominent Remainers in 2016 were happily using the phrase “no access to” and allowing the impression to be formed that there might be a total ban on British goods - he may simply have been responding to just such a disingenuous comment) then his statement would still have been perfectly reasonable. Every international trade deal the EU has signed gives preferential access to the single market in some form or other. There was no reason to believe the EU would demand an extensive deal or nothing.
At the end of the day, in any negotiation if the price is too high you walk away. What you don’t do is allow the other side to believe you’ll eventually sign any deal rather than no deal.
International trade deals typically rely on mutual recognition of standards. Those that go further, only insist that goods produced for export are produced to the same standard as domestic products in the target market. That is a perfectly acceptable definition of protecting the single market. What the EU is trying to do is to ensure regulatory alignment so that British businesses can’t find ways of operating more efficiently, regardless of the standard of the finished goods and regardless of whether those goods are destined for the EU or not. That is totally absurd and misses the whole point of Brexit. They are terms not imposed on anyone else.