Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Tim Watts wrote

If the EU superstate project had been squashed at birth (as Thatcher was
advocating when it first came up - hint, suggest listening to her, it's
all of
30 seconds), we would almost certainly not be in the mess now. We'd
have the EEC and free trade minus most of the stuff that isn't working.

Interesting hypothesis. You think there wouldn't have been
a vast number of regulations covering that free trade?

We know that there weren't with the EEC.

You can only have a free trade area if all follow common rules.

How odd that NAFTA doesn’t do it that way.

Otherwise each country would try to gain an advantage over the others.

And NAFTA works fine anyway. And so did the EEC.

For example. The UK brings in tighter controls over vehicle emissions
because of severe problems in London, etc. So any imported vehicle
must meet them too. Those living in a country where pollution
wasn't such a problem would call foul. And so on.

How odd that California has just that with vehicle emissions
and Mexico just ignores those with cars in Mexico.

So who decides on those regulations to be
adopted throughout that free trade area?

No one does with NAFTA, because it isnt
actually stupid enough to do it like that.

And fairly, so they don't give one country an advantage over another?

No one does with NAFTA, because it isnt
actually stupid enough to do it like that.

Some form of committee where they all are represented.

Nope, no committee, no nothing.

All unelected? That would never do.

All countries retain their own currency with
no exchange rate controls between them.

Yep, that's how NAFTA does it.

The poorer countries flood the market with cheaply
produced goods. Like say agricultural produce.

Yep, that's what happens in NAFTA.

I can quite understand mere politicians not actually having a clue
about how things work - but surely we have more sense on here?

You clearly don’t have a ****ing clue how
plenty of free trade areas actually work.