"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Roger Mills writes:
On 17/06/2016 12:54, Andy Burns wrote:
Mark Allread wrote:

I just picked up a snippet of information showing that those who said
the
UK is already negotiating its own trade deals is wrong as we aren't
allowed to do so whilst in the EU.

This means that we currently have no trade deal with USA, NZ,
Australia,
China or India to name but a few.

We are still a member of WTO (twice in fact, directly as the UK where we
pay the membership fees, and indirectly as a member of the EU where no
fees are paid) so that would give as a basic trade deal with other WTO
members.

But it wouldn't be a *free* trade deal, we'd have to re-negotiate those,
the two years for the EU exit process is rather short for the usual
negotiations, but the carrot to the EU to get their finger out would be
continuing to sell their cars (and windmills, etc) to us without duty
slapped on the price.

It's *much* more important for the EU to
ensure that we fail if we're outside the EU

Not even possible for the EU to do that. The most it
can ever do is impose massive trade barriers with the
EU and it can even legally do that given the WTO
rules that requires the EU to have the SAME tariffs
for everyone with a particular class of goods.

Yes, the EU can certainly treat Britain the same
way as it does all other countries outside the
EU with stuff they sell to the EU, instead of the
current tariff and quota free trade with Britain,
but that can't possibly see Britain fail. The most
that it might do is cripple British agricultural
exports to the EU and see the car manufacturers
that currently manufacture in Britain move those
car plants to the EU so they can continue to ship
those cars and engines etc tariff free to the EU.
That isnt going to see Britain fail.

than it is to sell extra German cars to us. Failure
to ensure we struggle outside the EU will lead
to rapid collapse of the whole EU,

BULL****. France and Germany arent going
to leave because they are the ones that set it
up. Spain, Italy Greece etc arent going to leave
because they would then have no one to bail
them out when their banks implode spectacularly.

A few like Holland and some Scandinavian countries
might well prefer the sort of arrangement that Denmark
and Switzerland have, but the EU would survive them
leaving fine.

The more recent joiners arent going to leave whatever
Britain does, because they get far more from the EU
than they have to pay the EU, that is why they joined
and that was so recently that few would have decided
that it was a bad move to join.

something the commission knows only too well. In any case,
even without any duty, German cars will almost certainly
become significantly more expensive as the pound slides.

But they still leave the alternatives for dead and if the
pound does slide, all the alternatives would increase in
price anyway except for the yank crap still made in Britain.

(I think the EU will eventually collapse either way, but I'd much
rather we were a key part of repairing it than outside it.)

Makes a lot more sense to be out of the EU when it is desperately
attempting to keep the eurozone working and then rejoin the EU
once it has collapsed and has fixed the problem that caused the
collapse, don't bother with a common currency anymore and
have a much more democratic process for deciding EU policy.

As I understand it, you don't *have* to have trade deals in
order to trade with other countries - but it sometimes helps.

You need trade deals if you want duty-less trade.

Nope, the current fashion is to reduce duty levels unilaterally.

There's a duty applied to many goods imported from the
US, and they do likewise to many goods we export to them.

But that duty rate isn't very high now. Low enough so that
even with that duty, almost all the computers/smartphones
and all sorts of other technology and cars and aircraft are
imported anyway.

Also, the regulatory issues make that more expensive
for manufacturers, as individual trade deals each have
to meet completely different product standards, which
is not the case in the EU free trade area due to standards
harmonisation.

Nothing to stop Britain from continuing to export what
complies with the EU standards like they do now.

Again, as I understand it, neither the UK nor the EU currently has a
trade deal with the USA - this is what TTIP is all about, but hasn't yet
been agreed. But we *still* do a lot of trade with the US.

[As far as I can see, TTIP would be bad news for us anyway - so if we're
not in the EU at the time when it's finally agreed, so much the better!]

I don't think there's any chance the EU countries will agree to TTIP
as currently leaked.

And it is unlikely that once the govt changes in the US it will persist
with it anyway, regardless of whether Trump or Hitlary is President.

I would be much more concerned about our
government agreeing to it if we're outside the EU.

Its not going to happen now.