Finally, someone actually saying this in the mainstream press:
There are only nine WTO members with which the EU has
never considered preferential trading arrangements, and of these six
have English as a native tongue or widely spoken second language:
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, America and Hong Kong.
Britain could surely benefit from negotiating free trade agreements
with each of the first five.
Outside the EU
customs union, we could also benefit from importing food on our own
terms, saving the average family of four some £1,500 a year. We could
pursue trade disputes at the WTO in our own right, without having to
wait for a perceived common European interest.
Of
course, leaving the customs union would mean leaving the single market,
too. That would involve losing the right to free movement of goods, and
would have complex consequences for a number of industries. But overall
we ought to be able to negotiate at least as good a deal through an
inter-governmental trade agreement with the EU as we now have through
the supranational single market. And the prize to Britain of recovering
control of its trade policy would surely be glittering indeed.
Patrick Minford has actually crunched those numbers. Even if the EU insisted that we pay the usual customs duties, were subject to the normal quotas imposed on ex-EU trade, the UK would benefit by 2.5% of GDP.
Time to go don’t you think?
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