On 25/09/2019 00:43, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Steve Walker wrote:
And so they will - given a reasonable deal. Which leave promised us would
be easy.

But what is a reasonable deal? Remaining in a customs union, where you
cannot set your own tariffs or do trade deals with other countries?
Remaining in the single market, where you must follow all the EU's rules
rather than just producing goods that meet EU standards and which
requires freedom of movement?

What do you think a deal means? You think we could get a deal with any
country in the world without conditions?

Of course there are always conditions, but not ones that tie up the
whole country with huge numbers of rules. How many are part of the
EU/Japan FTA?

The main ones seem to be following the same standards for cars, which
they effectively did anyway and freedom of movement for professionals
(as part of movement between employers' offices). Oh and they can't sell
whale meat to the EU.

A good deal is simply a trade deal without all the extras, but that is
not on offer to the UK, despite the EU doing such deals with other
countries.

We could have the same deal as Canada or whatever easily. But that
wouldn't solve the Irish border problem.

As the UK is a sovereign nation and NI is part of it, while the EU is
not a nation at all, put the border between the RoI and the rest of the
EU? No? Thought not, so why should the UK remain bound to the EU for
perpetuity unless we have a border between two parts of our nation?

If the people of NI want to leave the UK and join the ROI, then they
have the right to (it is likely to happen eventually), until then they
remain an integral part of the UK, but that cannot be used to prevent
the UK leaving. It is the EU that insist on the itegrity of their
precious SM and thus that there must be a hard border unless NI is
effectively separated from the UK, not the UK.

SteveW