Project Fantasy (the name
I shall use for the Leave EU campaigners) say
“We can leave the EU and still
have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the other 27 countries and we can also
take control of our country back”.
They go on to say how the UK
is so powerful that after we have left, UK can just impose a new trade
agreement with the EU on our own terms and that the EU won’t put tariffs in
place because they need us more than we need them.
I’m
sorry they are not being honest! Let’s take a look at these statements:
On a
new FTA, there is unavoidable legislation in place for tariff regimes for any country
that leaves the EU. It is automatic and unavoidable if we vote to leave
the EU.
On
taking control of our country – the UK already has complete control over our
laws, rules and regulations. It wasn’t the EU that forced the
Government to implement a ‘Snoopers Charter’ to allow the Government to read
all our emails, it wasn’t the EU that forced the Government to cut 30% per week
off disability benefits, it wasn’t the EU that forced the Government to sell
off parts of the NHS etc. Overall, there are not that many EU
directives that the UK has implemented, and we would have to keep them all
anyway if we leave the EU, in the same way that we would have to meet product
regulations from the USA if we want to sell product there too.
Project
Fantasy claim that trade agreements are not imposed by the smaller player in a
negotiation, they are ‘agreed’, and/or compromises are reached.
Concessions are made by each side in the negotiation and a meeting of minds is
reached to finalise an agreement.
So what
attitude will the other side in the negotiation take towards the
negotiations? Let’s see what they have to say:
Rafał
Trzaskowski, Poland’s Secretary of State for European affairs: “Leave the union
and you will see how much control you will have over your own destiny,”
…. “It is an illusion that Great Britain can be as important as it is
now, standing alone on the global stage.”
Laurent
Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, has also said his country will block
any “special status” for the UK.
Former
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has warned the UK not to lose
himself in “wishful thinking” and that Angela Merkel, would do nothing to
“endanger the basic principles of the common market, of the EU”
Dr Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta (one of
the unanimous Heads of State that the UK would need for a post-Brexit
negotiation):
“Should Britain choose to exit the EU, the EU
leaders would be keen to show to their national audiences that such a process
would be very ugly, very painful and very costly. Any settlement and possible
deal will not offer the kind of 1970s single market model while ditching what
some consider as irritating add-ons. In other words, one can safely assume that freedom of movement of persons, on the same level as it
is today, would remain a main requirement for any free access to the single
market,”
The
story is strikingly similar from Paris to Brussels, Berlin and Warsaw. Everyone
wants to try to help the UK, but there are limits beyond which they will not
go. A post-EU Britain would need a unanimous vote of ALL 27 member
countries Heads of State for future agreements to be approved I rather doubt
that they will be that keen to offer the UK all the benefits of the club after
we just resigned our membership.
Naturally
other EU member states will want to protect their own interests (which are also
ours until we vote to leave), this means that they will want to ensure that the
EU continues with its own priorities in what are very difficult political and
economic times.
Making
sure that someone who has just left the club ‘feels OK’ about the new situation
will be very low on their list of priorities!
Anyone
that thinks the UK will get an ‘easy ride’ if we vote to leave the EU is simply
unaware of what happens next, or just doesn’t care about the people of the
United Kingdom – either way, they need to be aware that times will be tough
after a leave vote. (whatever we end up negotiating it is almost guaranteed to
be a worse deal for UK exporters than we already have)
The experience of Switzerland should alert us that
Project Fantasy will be the biggest gamble we will ever take. The Swiss have spent
more than ten years negotiating over 120 separate bi-lateral agreements with
the European Union.
They pay “a fortune” to the EU towards cohesion
funds, has to accept free movement of people, has a range of tariffs imposed on
it by the EU on all sorts from coffee to car parts to vinegar and still doesn’t
have access to the Single Market for its biggest export Financial Services.
The UK is not just voting on free movement of
people since we are not in the Schengen Agreement anyway. The UK already
controls its own borders. The UK is far more intertwined in the EU than
Switzerland ever was. Through our cultures and our attitudes towards the world
we are united.
So
what does Project Fantasy say next?
Ah the UK can walk away from the EU because most of
our GDP is home grown….so exports do not matter as much as is being claimed!
According to the World Bank, UK exports represent
around 30% of our total GDP. That represents £630.3 BILLION..
To put that figure into perspective the Chancellor’s
austerity cuts that people complain about so much total around £30 billion over
the next 5 years according to HM Treasury. So yes our exports are hugely
important and greatly matter.
I reckon
the best option is to continue to work together with our European neighbours',
reforming the EU, keeping our influence on the world stage, maintaining our
customer base, keeping our costs low, continue to help develop poorer countries
so that they can afford to buy the products we make, continue to make the world
a better place and have open minds about the future of our Sovereign and
independent country as a part of something bigger.Many of my posts on the EU and Brexit for a period will be an amalgam of previous posts by Jason J Hunter of the New Europeans. He is doing outstanding posts.