How would we spend all the tariff money if the EU wants to damage their trade with us?

Yesterday Civitas published a useful piece of research cataloguing how much money the rest of the EU would have to pay for tariffs on goods we import from them if they opt for the WTO trade option instead of wanting to carry on tariff free. I have drawn attention to this before, and have heard the figure for our tariff revenue is around £15bn, more than twice as much as the tariffs our exporters would have to pay. Civitas produced a detailed calculation which says we will collect £12.9bn of tariff revenue on EU exports to us, and will have to pay out just £5.2bn on goods we export to them.

This is of course before the adjustments you would expect as a result of these differential tariffs and as a result of the depreciation of the pound. You would expect the UK to substitute UK cars for foreign ones, UK cheese, beef, milk and other farm products for EU ones, and to keep more of our own fish, amongst other obvious targets for improvement. So as we adjust then the tariffs we receive will come down a bit – say to £10bn or twice the tariffs on our exports. Our exports are likely to go up, but we are better at non tariff items which figure more predominantly in our export profile.

I trust the UK based motor industry is gearing up production to meet the extra UK demand that is likely. With continental cars already around 15% dearer thanks to the pound, another 10% on top from a car tariff should mean many more people will see the advantages of a UK built car. On the last two occasions when I have traded in my older UK vehicle for a new one built in the UK I have experienced a wait for the new car, showing they are already short of capacity. This is a great opportunity for the car makers which I expect them to exploit.

The figures show we are in major deficit with all the main continental countries on goods including the smaller ones like Austria,Finland,Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Indeed we only have a goods surplus with Croatia, Cyorus, Estonia,Greece and Malta, of around £0.5 bn in total from them compared to the overall deficit of £103 billion. The deficit with Germany alone is £37bn.

It is difficult to believe they would want to make these large exports to us dearer. If they do then we will have the money to give in one form or another to our exporters as compensation for the tariffs they will pay. That will leave us several billions to the good. How would you like to spend that?

178 Comments

  1. Holmes
    October 25, 2016

    As a Country we must sort out our balance of payments deficit as a priority, so inventive ways to bring about new high tech, high skilled, well paid jobs.

    1. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      The last thing we want is yet more government intervention and waste. New and better paid jobs will come when the government reduces in size, lowers taxes, has a bonfire of red tape, goes for cheap energy and just gets out of the way.

      Government plans such as HS2 are patently absurd and actively damage the economy overall, killing net jobs and depressing wages and living standards.

      Osborne’s wage controls will also be hugely damaging to investment and growth. As we’re all his tax increases and tax complexity increases.

      1. Sir Joe Soap
        October 25, 2016

        Yes, but equilibrium is a wonderful thing.
        All these silly ideas that £9.20 or whatever should be a minimum or living wage, then the FX market comes along and knocks these idiots’ numbers firmly on the head. A living wage is equal to whatever value you add to the economy, not whatever you might want to buy with that value.

        1. Bob
          October 25, 2016

          @Sir Joe Soap
          Gideon has been sacked as Chancellor so hopefully this kind of nonesense will not continue.

          1. Hope
            October 25, 2016

            How would we love me to spend it? How about balancing the books before more wasteful spending. How about refusing to pay the latest demand of £700 million by the EU! When is the govt going to stand up for our country and our citizens. Today we read hundreds more of Syrians allowed in despite record mass immigration this year! Our public services cannot cope, when will you and other politicians get it? I do not feel sorry for alleged children allowed to travel the world by themselves. I am only see young economic migrant single men.

          2. Lifelogic
            October 25, 2016

            We shall see. Will Hammond undo the damage that Osborne did? This with his landlord, tenant and pension pot mugging, his absurd stamp duty rates, his IHT ratting, his removal of child benefit and personally allowances and his counter productive attacks on Non Doms. We shall see shortly.

            He has not even had the good sense yet to point out what financial disasters HS2 and Hinkley C will be nor has he cancelled all the subsidies for greencrap lunacy.

          3. Hope
            October 25, 2016

            Read Guido Fawkes on how much South Korea trades with the EU and it is not in the single market! 200 billion! And they do have to comply with the four principles includ My free movement of people.

          4. Lifelogic
            October 26, 2016

            You are rather optimistic I suspect. We shall see on 23rd of November when we get remainer Hammond’s Autumn statement. The signs so far are far from encouraging.

      2. Ed Mahony
        October 25, 2016

        ‘when the government reduces in size, lowers taxes, has a bonfire of red tape, goes for cheap energy and just gets out of the way’

        – The Nordic countries all believe in high taxation whilst having higher GDP than us in the UK.
        – Bureaucracy has its pros and cons. Without a certain amount of bureaucracy, IBM would never have grown into the company it is today. Germans love bureaucracy (to a degree). Their economy is more successful than ours.
        – And we need government spending on well-researched, highly objective public enterprises which private companies can take advantage of and thrive in. And i think the government should be playing a particular role in encouraging the growth of high tech companies and helping them to develop into well-known, international brands.

        I think we need to be more pragmatic and less ideological about the size of the government, bureaucracy and things like that.

        1. libertarian
          October 26, 2016

          Ed Mahony

          Er wrong, why not actually go and see what the Nordic countries are actually doing rather than rely on out of date myths?

          While by no means a low-tax country, Denmark has reduced it’s tax rate by over 10%

          Finland is another one of those countries that the Left just loves to talk about, and yet is also dropping it’s tax rates. This Nordic country has cut its top income tax rate from 62.2% to 51.6%

          Norway cut top rate to 42.7%

          Sweden has cut corporation tax to 22%

          Because of bureaucracy IBM failed to capitalise on mini computer market until it was too late handing the market to DEC, Wang, HP

          Because of in company bureaucracy IBM completely failed to dominate the fledgling PC operating system market.

          The company that IBM is today is primarily a services company where it was once the number one manufacturing company

          IBM had 379,592 employees at the end of 2014, down 12 percent from a year earlier when the company posted the first decline in a decade in profits

          The German economy although bigger due to a larger population is roughly similar to the UK and like the UK the German economy is mostly founded on the mittelstand as is ours on SME’s and those kind of companies DO NO do bureaucracy

          I dont think you have a clue what you’re talking about

          1. graham1946
            October 27, 2016

            Isn’t IBM small computers owned by Lenovo of China now?

      3. fedupsoutherner
        October 25, 2016

        @Lifelogic. Cheaper energy????? What a laugh. I have just read that the government is to pay subsidies (taken from our bills of course) to pay for diesel generators to run when the grid needs it this winter. Diesel generators are filthy but its ok to pay them but to do away with coal. Has our government lost their senses?

      4. fedupsoutherner
        October 25, 2016

        @Lifelogic. Cheaper energy??? You must be joking. I have just read that the government is to pay subsidies for filthy diesel generators to operate when supplies are low on the grid due to no wind/sun. We have to shut down our coal fired power stations and yet pay to have something which is just as bad. Has the government lost all common sense? The whole renewables scam is one big joke.

        1. fedupsoutherner
          October 25, 2016

          Sorry, repeated my two posts above by accident.

      5. Kevin Lohse
        October 25, 2016

        Plus lots. Interventionist policies are what kills industry, commerce and entrepreneurship. No matter how careful the government, you end up with the twin evils of crony corporatism and debt socialisation, resulting in the destruction of a country’s wealth while an elite get ever richer. This is the way the EU works and is why we must leave, hard or soft.

    2. Ed Mahony
      October 25, 2016

      ‘high tech’

      Mrs May’s response to the sale of ARM was PATHETIC. Her response to the Japanese taking over our leading high tech company was ‘see, we’re open to business.’
      ARM was a great opportunity for us to build up a truly, global high tech British brand. But instead, we gave that opportunity to the Japanese. It would have inspired British high tech entrepreneurs. That’s the most important loss of Arm. But also, the Japanese might just go off with the intellectual property and close down jobs here in the UK over the next few years. And it happened not because we’re open for business, but the dramatic drop in sterling was the clinching factor that swung the Japanese to go for the deal. With a drop in sterling making take-overs of British companies (and property) much easier and more attractive for foreign investors (whilst being outside the EU, we lost the status to another type of investor who uses the UK as a bridge into the EU – in other words there’s good and bad investment, and ARM was a great example of bad investment, and how damaging this was not just to the British high tech industry that we need to develop but also to our long-term economy as a whole).

      1. forthurst
        October 25, 2016

        “the dramatic drop in sterling was the clinching factor that swung the Japanese to go for the deal [ to purchase ARM].”

        Unfortunately, without protecting our industries, they become the playthings of foreign investors; even at the Softbank offer price of £17, the historical p/e ration was not as high as it had been for long periods despite no faltering in ARM’s performance. Blame Hammond and Stuart Chambers not the exchange rate.

      2. Richard1
        October 25, 2016

        Who is ‘we’ who decided to sell ARM to ‘the Japanese’? Arm belonged to its shareholders. If you agreed to sell your house to me how would you like it if the govt said no you can only sell it to forthurst, for perhaps 1/2 the price? As it happens ARM under SoftBank is on a major hiring spree in Cambridge and will create 1,000 new posts. So much so there are now concerns over the effect on a housing supply and local services already under pressure.

        1. forthurst
          October 26, 2016

          In some countries where there is unaccepatble levels of ‘foreign interest’ in the housing stock, the inherent right to sell to foreigners in certain places, or of certain types of houses does not exist; many countries do not live in a neo-liberal wet dream beneficial to unpatriotic spivs and no-one else.

          1. forthurst
            October 26, 2016

            ARM had one billion cash in the balance sheet befoe it was taken over by the indebted Softbank; are you suggesting it could not afford to hire, if it had wanted to?

          2. Richard1
            October 26, 2016

            I am saying that we do not want the govt dictating to people to whom they should / shouldn’t sell their property, assuming no crime is involved, unless there is some overriding national interest.

      3. libertarian
        October 26, 2016

        Ed Mahony

        I dont want to be rude but you are another one with no idea about business and no desire to actually research anything before you post it

        1) ARM was owned by its shareholders who’s nationality you have no idea of and who are entitled to sell their property

        2) This nonsense about bridges into the EU is laughable

        3) To secure the deal, and the approval of the UK government, SoftBank has promised to keep ARM’s headquarters in Cambridge and to double the size of its UK workforce of 1,695 in the next five years. It made the pledges in legally binding undertakings, the first time a company has done so since rules were introduced last year amid concerns about foreign takeovers of UK companies.

        4) The fall in Stirling had nil affect ARM books its financial performance in US dollars !!!!

        5)SoftBank is paying an enormous premium – 43pc above the company’s share price before the deal was announced. The takeover price is 56 times ARM’s pre-tax profits last year.

        6) This its a British business guff is pointless too. The company was founded and sold by Hermann Hauser an Austrian, who is now complaining of its sale to the Japanese but who had no such fears when he sold the business for a personal profit

        7) There are hundreds of new high tech businesses in the UK and more joining them all the time, our problem is the massive skills shortages and our woeful out of date education system UK top 50 tech companies grew by 1883% last year

        I really do have to tell you Ed you haven’t got a clue about business, find another subject to talk about

    3. Know-dice
      October 25, 2016

      Yes, use this “once in a generation” opportunity to rebalance trade. Bring manufacturing back home & buy British…

  2. Lifelogic
    October 25, 2016

    How would we like to spend it? Well certainly not on HS2, Hinkley Point, greencrap subsidies, Swansea “lagoons”, gender pay reporting or the costs and inefficiency lumped on to countless businesses by putting workers & customers on company boards.

    The best way to spend it would be by firing the 50% of the state sector (that does little of any use or often worse positive harm), then giving all the money saved back as tax cuts, tax simplification, having a bonfire of red tape, abolishing the absurd climate change act and sorting out the dire NHS that can never work efficiently as currently arranged and relaxing planning laws.

    It should be spend getting the government out of the bl**** way. Alas we have T May who so far seems like yet another top down, fake “equality” pushing, greencrap, vanity project, interventionist & dithering lefty.

    Undo all the vast & complex tax increases brought in by the appallingly misguided Osborne while serving under “I am a low tax at heart Conservative” Cameron.

    1. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      Perhaps Cameron should read Owen Patterson’s report into the NHS and ponder his appalling record. This after promising the voters with his pathetic sound bite that:- My priority in three letters is the N…H…S……

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/25/lets-be-honest-the-nhs-is-costing-thousands-of-lives/

    2. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      They could also perhaps use the money to keep Osborne’s promise of a £1Million IHT threshold each. Rather than the current complex, ratting fudge Osborne planned before his richly deserved eviction.

      At least Cameron did the decent thing and resigned his seat.

  3. Mick
    October 25, 2016

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/724716/Article-50-European-Court-of-Justice-triggering-Brexit-clause
    What part of leave don’t these muppets understand, if anyone try’s to overturn the vote of the people civil war will be the only outcome, and I’m sick to the back teeth of hearing from the mp remoaners that they except the result of 23th June, what a load of bull don’t take us for bloody idiots you are all playing on words to keep your seat at the next GE, well tough you are history and will not be missed bye bye

    1. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      An excellent article insofar as it shows up the full extent to which our brilliant parliamentarians have allowed control to shift to the EU, even to the point where the EU’s Court of Justice could be pronouncing on our national constitution and deciding whether we would be permitted to leave the EU.

      However on that particular legal point of whether an Article 50 notice could be unilaterally revoked, in the recent High Court proceedings the Attorney General conceded the claimants’ contention that it is irreversible.

      Page 64 here:

      https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/20161017-all-day.pdf

      “My Lords, we do not argue that an Article 50 notice can be revoked, and we invite the court to proceed in this case on the basis that a notification under Article 50(2) is irrevocable. We do not in any event accept that this question is central to the arguments before the court; if the claimants are right that the use of the prerogative to notify under Article 50(2) is unlawful, either by virtue of a common law principle or by implication from the 1972 Act, then an act of the executive seeking to do so would still be unlawful, even if Parliament was able to step in and stop the process. But the defendant is also content to proceed on the basis that as a matter of firm policy, once given a notification will not in fact be withdrawn.”

      1. forthurst
        October 25, 2016

        The biographies of the Judges trying this case are pretty alarming.

        1. Denis Cooper
          October 26, 2016

          So too the histories of some of the Supreme Court judges who will almost certainly be asked to make the final decision.

    2. Ed Mahony
      October 25, 2016

      There’s FAR more to life than whether we’re in or out of the EU. If Brexit works out, great. IF it doesn’t, and the economy sinks or something, there might be a call for a second referendum. Common sense dictates we should only have a referendum when absolutely necessary (e.g. if something dramatic happens to the economy). And don’t forget, common sense was not involved in the calling of this referendum (Cameron called it for internal Conservative-Party reasons with no plan if he lost the vote).
      It’s wrong to call for a second referendum at this point. That would be anti-democratic. And i think the time for talk from all quarters is over. We now just need to get on with Brexit. And prepare ourselves for the likelihood there will be no deal. Hopefully Brexit works. Be great. But if it doesn’t, and the opposite happens, then we revert to how we were before, but this time ensuring that the EU is reformed, in particular on immigration.
      Regards

      PS And don’t forget the concerns of Remainers. 75% of 18 to 24 year olds, for example, voted Remain because they’re worried about the future (unable to afford a house, job insecurity, university loans etc ..). More of the older generation voted Leave (and have much more money in their pockets in case Brexit goes wrong – in other words they can afford the risk – by the way, risk doesn’t have to be a bad thing, the opposite). Therefore i think it would be better if these older voters, who voted leave, tried to be as patient as they can and reassure the younger voters, who voted remain, that things will work out. Lastly, a lot of people voted remain. And there’s nothing wrong or illegal to be concerned about Brexit (and exact same about being concerned about remaining in the EU if the referendum had gone the other way). Everyone should be wary whether you voted leave or reamin. But our greatest concern should be for the younger generation. That whatever happens, things work out best for them. Especially as it’s going to cost more and more to look after the old generation in the years to come.

  4. John Shepherd
    October 25, 2016

    The best support we could give our exporters would be to reduce taxes on exported products. The additional works, the form-filling and so on that are incurred when exporting should be set against the company tax bill to achieve a zero penalty on such activities/materials.

  5. Edward.
    October 25, 2016

    I would like the money [above] spent on among other things – natch. But primarily on, RN pay & recruitment, build surface ships for it is doubtful with two carriers due [maybe] to enter service if, we have the sufficient wherewithal to provide protection and resupply, auxilliary support for both vessels and then, just more RN period.

    Next to confront and repair, the woeful state of our coastal defences – or lack thereof. In the very near future defending our seas and shoreline: this will become an immediate necessity but also very dangerous work.

    For until we purchase [USA do this very well]….preferably build ourselves – some super fast patrol boats and suitably trained, armed personnel. Until then, we should ensure to enlist the services of our local inshore fishing boats, not up to speed [with suitable instruction….and for use in protection and defence only – we could arm them though] but certainly they would more than compensate by and through local knowledge [of environs and waters] their seamanship……to be our eyes [and ears] on the sea and thus to boost our vigilance, its inshore surveillance.

    For sure we need most urgently, to boost the efficacy of our once virtually unrivalled RN and to those doubters and naysayers whose would shriek at the cost and effort therein, I say, what value can you place on, how much is, the security of the nation worth?

    We rely so heavily on sea trade, Britain is an island for goodness sake. Our political elite, over the past 43 years of whatever hue, seemed to have developed a rather [in] convenient amnesia concerning marine defence capability and the importance of such.

    A nation who looks outward and to the sea requires a marine presence to defend her interests, the PRC , India, the USA understands this, very well indeed…..and back in the near past, we used to, we need to get used to it – again.

  6. Elliot Kane
    October 25, 2016

    I think dealing with the national debt should be our main priority. It’s far too large for comfort.

    1. Ed Mahony
      October 25, 2016

      ‘I think dealing with the national debt should be our main priority. It’s far too large for comfort’

      – well said. And this is far more important than whether we’re in or out of the EU. Another reason why holding the referendum at this time (not saying we shouldn’t have held it at another time) was extremely irresponsible on the part of Mr Cameron.

      And i think many of the 75% of the younger generation who voted remain had this at the back of their minds, considering they have their own personal debts to pay off from university, but far more important than university debts, the huge mortgage payments they’re going to be saddled with – if they can get on the housing market at all – whilst having to deal with job insecurity, whilst then having to support an increasingly larger, older generation – for years to come.

      Reply The national debt is not too large – remember we now own one quarter of it! The actual debt is now around 60% of GDP only.

      1. Sir Joe Soap
        October 25, 2016

        Reply to reply
        Oh come on! That excludes state pension liabilities, for a start, which we’ve all paid and expect to get something back. What about PFI? Even without those, why do you want to saddle us with a blank cheque for interest payments on that 60% of GDP?

      2. Denis Cooper
        October 25, 2016

        “And i think many of the 75% of the younger generation who voted remain had this at the back of their minds …”

        I doubt that many of them know enough about the national debt for that to have been a consideration.

      3. forthurst
        October 25, 2016

        “i think many of the 75% of the younger generation who voted remain had [the National Debt] at the back of their minds”

        As someone who actually spoke to many people young people whilst campaigning for Brexit, I can tell you, you are wrong. They were worried about needing visa to go to EU countries and some felt borders were a thing of the past.

    2. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      But Cameron and Osborne told us they were, repaying the debt. They weren’t lying were they?

      1. Sir Joe Soap
        October 25, 2016

        No, they were getting the rate of increase of the rate of increase of the debt down. That’s decreasing the debt in PPE world.
        Just like they were for immigration.

        1. Lifelogic
          October 25, 2016

          Down to the “tens of thousands” sure Dave and indeed Mrs May.

    3. acorn
      October 25, 2016

      If you want to reduce the “national debt” (which isn’t debt as you understand it); STOP SAVING the governments money and SPEND IT.

      When you spend it, the government gets a lump of its money back directly by VAT and consequently by income tax from the people that made what you bought. The latter people spend what you gave them less VAT. The process continues multiple times around the economy, such that the government gets 100% of its own money back, a little bit at a time, via those taxes and charges etc.

      The “national debt” is actually the national savings. It is all the FIAT money the government spent into existence, that it hasn’t yet got back in taxes; BECAUSE YOU KEEP SAVING IT. The government isn’t bothered because it has a bottomless pit full of its FIAT money, that costs it next to nothing to spend into the economy, as long as there is something to buy from the private sector.

    4. A different Simon
      October 25, 2016

      Elliott Kane ,

      The lesson from history is that debts which cannot be repaid do not get repaid .

      As a sovereign nation where the elected govt is capable of issuing it’s own currency to cancel debts denominated in that currency , the country cannot go bankrupt .

      Often the so called debt is just a paperwork exercise – owed from one branch of govt to another , the central bank .

      As a country , we do however have to make things/services which the rest of the world wants or they will not accept our currency .

  7. Old Albion
    October 25, 2016

    I had hoped to hear your views on the meeting of the first ministers of the devolved administrations and the prime minister yesterday.
    It seems to me the SNP tail is, as usual, wagging the (dis)UK dog.
    How does the Gov. continue to get away with no English representation at such meetings?

    1. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      Indeed the Scottish with there dire SNP & even Wales and there lefty loon politicians get huge coverage on the BBC. It is out of all proportion to their import. What about the far larger North West, North East, East and West Midlands and the South West for a change?

      1. Lifelogic
        October 25, 2016

        their!

      2. rose
        October 25, 2016

        But we don’t want England to be broken up into regions – that is what the EU wanted to do to us, and the anglophobes here, to dissolve our nation. I take your point that the NE, NW, SW, and E & W Midlands are bigger and more important than SNPland.

    2. Narrow Shoulders
      October 25, 2016

      Ignore them and they might go away. Ms Sturgeon and her ilk get far too much publicity for the number of votes they command.

      We should marginalise this town council not listen to it.

      1. Bob
        October 25, 2016

        @Narrow Shoulders

        “Ms Sturgeon and her ilk get far too much publicity for the number of votes they command.”

        The bulk of MPs and MSM are against Brexit, which is why they give her such prominence.

    3. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      As far as I’m concerned the SNP can have another independence referendum, but only some years after we have all left the EU and the dust has settled. Then the population of Scotland could decide whether life outside the EU and the EU Single Market really was as terrible as the SNP had predicted. They actually have very little to lose from it being done in that sensible order because even if they voted to leave the UK tomorrow Scotland would not just stay in the EU on the UK’s existing terms, as the SNP likes to pretend, it would either end up outside the EU for a long time, maybe forever, or by one legal route or another it would end up in the EU but without any of the UK’s opt-outs. So all Theresa May has to do is to refuse to ask Parliament to approve another Section 30 order for a referendum, but at the same time promise that if the Scots really want another referendum in five or ten years’ time then the UK government and Parliament will allow them to have one.

      Reply The UK single market is four times as important to Scotland as the rest of the EU is. They would also need to negotiate access to that, as they would be leaving it.

      1. Mark B
        October 25, 2016

        To both gentleman I would like to add my support to your comments.

        Thank you.

  8. Mark B
    October 25, 2016

    Good morning.

    I have drawn attention to this before, and have heard the figure for our tariff revenue is around £15bn, more than twice as much as the tariffs our exporters would have to pay. Civitas produced a detailed calculation which says we will collect £12.9bn of tariff revenue on EU exports to us, and will have to pay out just £5.2bn on goods we export to them.

    OK, lets be clear about this. Exporters DO NOT pay the tariff, it is the consumer. ie You and me ! It is government, in this case both the EU and the UK, that would collect this TAX. The whole point of tariff’s is to create an artificial level playing field. The most notable from our history were the, Corn Laws.

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Corn+Laws&oq=Corn+Laws&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Tariffs keep prices high and hit demand, growth and wealth creation. They also hit the poorest. Corporations can lobby and circumvent tariffs as they have power and privilege.

    Our kind host talks about tariff’s as if such a thing would hurt the EU, it won’t ! In fact, it is probably, along with the UK government, is what they actually want. The EU does not care what damage is caused to Europe’s manufacturing base, so long as the project is kept from contagion (BREXIT).

  9. Narrow Shoulders
    October 25, 2016

    It seems several billion will be earmarked to pay housing benefit for young singles and others who find themselves homeless. However much it defies Conservative dogma surely it is better to spend some of the tariffs building houses for the state to collect rent on and reinvest in further stock.

    I am also hoping that your government will see its way to reinstating my supposedly universally offered child benefit. Perhaps you this could be paid for out of benefits currently claimed by minimum wage EU citizens and their imported impoverished families.

  10. MickN
    October 25, 2016

    Just make sure you don’t mention that we would have money to spend on other things like the NHS. The remoaners it seems see that as a cast iron pledge as with the 350 million a week that they keep bleating on was promised before the vote. It never was. If they can’t understand what they read how do they cope with filling in job applications?

    Reply And it looks as if this government will be spending an extra £350m a week by the end of this Parliament on the NHS anyway!

    1. fedupsoutherner
      October 25, 2016

      Reply And it looks as if this government will be spending an extra £350m a week by the end of this Parliament on the NHS anyway!

      Well I do hope the government makes sure the media know this and give it enough coverage.

  11. Richard1
    October 25, 2016

    I do not think we should welcome a trade war, history shows it damages everyone involved. If we cannot get a quick and sensible trade deal with the EU – and perhaps even if we can – the govt should make dramatic tax cuts to ensure businesses remain in the U.K. Corporation tax to 10% as is relortedly considered would be a good idea. The top rate of income tax to 35% or even 30% and cutting the non dom charge back to £30k will ensure all those highly paid foreigners who are considering leaving will decide to remain.

    1. a-tracy
      October 25, 2016

      I agree we Brits don’t welcome it Richard1 it seems to be what the rest of the EU want to punish us with for having the temerity to want to leave.

      We are a free trading people. Within the EU the French have already put barriers up to the freedom of movement of goods with their July 2016 Macron Law (how has this been allowed?) and why is it never mentioned on the BBC. Delivery drivers must carry a certificate in French, issued by a designated representative in France quotes around 250 euros for this facility per movement.

      We wanted control over immigration and benefits in our Country not zero immigration the majority understand this.

    2. Andy
      October 25, 2016

      A better idea would be to abolish Corporation tax and to introduce a Flat Tax.

      1. Richard1
        October 25, 2016

        I agree but I doubt that would have a chance of getting through this Parliament and probably wouldn’t be supported by Mrs May.

    3. Bob
      October 25, 2016

      @Richard1

      It occurs to me that it would be wise to review virtually everything that Cameron & Osborne did.

      The Child Benefits scheme being a case in point. Just limit it to 3 kids.
      Steps like this would have helped reduce the queues of welfare tourists at Calais without the use of teargas.

  12. Edward
    October 25, 2016

    John

    I had a quick skim of the Civitas (Protts) analysis to understand their methodology.

    A key ingredient that seems to be missing is the fact the UK (once we have taken ‘back control’) are not mandated under WTO rules to impose additional costs by way of tariffs on our UK consumers for their imports. The UK government will make itself deeply unpopular by imposing such blanket taxes even if the EU imposes tariffs on UK exports.

    1. forthurst
      October 25, 2016

      Clearly, the WTO determines maximum tariffs to which governments cannot add (unless dumping is involved); that is the whole purpose of the WTO.

      The higher tariffs on agricultural produce suggest that unless the dept of agriculture etc gets it act together and assists farmers to expand production rapidly, that there would be substantial price increases at the farm gate increasing the cost of food across the board.

      http://civitas.org.uk/reports_articles/potential-post-brexit-tariff-costs-for-eu-uk-trade/

      Reply World food prices are considerably lower than EU prices, so we could import from cheaper parts of the world

  13. JoolsB
    October 25, 2016

    No doubt Mrs. May will invite the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales & NI to discuss the matter, just as she did yesterday. Meanwhile as usual, no-one was there to represent England and demand the voices of Brexit voting England be heard. Where was our First Minister? Oh that’s right, England isn’t allowed one.
    Hope you and your colleagues are proud of yourselves John for allowing this farce we call democracy to continue.

    1. a-tracy
      October 25, 2016

      To have proper balance Jools England doesn’t need one First Minister it needs seven to speak for each region if so much time and consideration is given to other three.

      1. JoolsB
        October 25, 2016

        England needs a collective voice, one voice speaking for England. England needs to be recognised as a nation in the same way as Scotland, Wales & NI are recognised as nations and not a collection of competing regions as our politicians would prefer. Any devolution within England should be for the English to decide by an English Parliament and not a United Kingdom Government which seems to put the interests of the rest of this dis-united Kingdom’s before England every time.
        Yesterday’s meeting at Downing Street between the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales & NI with the Prime Minister of the UK Government was an insult to the people of England, a slap in the face because if anyone thinks May or any of the other politicians present squatting in English seats were there to represent England, they are sadly mistaken.

        1. a-tracy
          October 25, 2016

          I don’t like the idea of a regional breakup of England like the EU wished and Labour played along with until they lost in the NE. However, we give far too much say and sway to Sturgeon and McGuiness and Leanne Woods? I see Sturgeon on the TV more than I see the UK PM! This is how divisions fester, now Cheshire is crying out for representation because of the Manchester Mayoral elections, but Warrington can’t decide if it wants to be in Merseyside or Cheshire!
          The trouble with the Labour party who significantly represent the NW and NE is they don’t actually represent the majority people’s views that live there. I feel they hold their electorate in contempt calling them “hardliners, uneducated, hostile racists” our infrastructure is poor, just converting a hard-shoulder on the M6’s busiest section is taking years and causing such accidents, problems and delays to trade. They build 100’s of extra houses but don’t put the roads in first, public transport is hardly existent, links to the airport aren’t fast and easy you have to go miles out of your way. But if all of the wealth, high powered jobs etc are based in the South and South East then don’t complain about Heathrow because you reap what you sow.

        2. Mark B
          October 25, 2016

          +1

        3. fedupsoutherner
          October 25, 2016

          JoolsB Quite right in what you say.

        4. a-tracy
          October 26, 2016

          I agree Jools especially after the NE rejected the regional assembly by 78%, however, Brexit is not a devolved matter it is to be negotiated at Westminster so why are the three regions given so much say and sway?

          There are only 8, EIGHT, Lib Dems elected in the whole of the UK yet night after night we have to listen to Tim Farron and Nick Clegg. They only got 8% of the full vote share with UKIP getting 12.6%, where is the UKIP MP is he on our TV each night with an alternative view to represent his vote share. This is all beginning to feel like a stitch up and we’re getting sold down the river and it’s time for the Leave team to get back in the game.

          The vote at Heathrow won’t be a vote on Brexit it’s a vote on one tiny constituency that was a rich boy’s plaything that he has now let the people down, thank God Londoners didn’t elect him Mayor.

          John, why aren’t you on the Brexit committee list of nominees?

  14. Denis Cooper
    October 25, 2016

    “It is difficult to believe they would want to make these large exports to us dearer.”

    It’s difficult to believe they would want to treat the UK as a rogue state and impose economic sanctions simply because we insist on controlling our immigration policy, in breach of their own EU treaties and wider “international law”, but one after another leading continental politicians have stated that this is precisely what they intend to do.

    We were warned about this by Stephen Kinnock MP back in January:

    http://www.stephenkinnock.co.uk/there_is_no_such_thing_as_a_soft_brexit

    “Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that a withdrawing state is therefore liable to suffer what would amount to a punishment beating to dissuade others from withdrawing, and that therefore there is no such thing as a soft Brexit?”

    But we chose to believe that common sense and financial self-interest would prevail and his threats of a “punishment beating” in blatant contravention of the EU treaties would prove to be idle; and indeed that might still turn out to be the case, once negotiations have actually started, but I think we need to consider whether we should run scared and give in to this attempted bullying or we should be prepared to resist it.

  15. agricola
    October 25, 2016

    Why not let the NHS benefit, but to juxtapose a phrase it would be like having an enema while tearing up fifty pound notes.

  16. Toffeeboy
    October 25, 2016

    As I’ve said before on this site, tariffs are just part of the trade process Mr Redwood. If EU countries wish to make it much harder for us to export to them they can easily do so in numerous ways – simply by not manning their customs posts or imposing numerous non-tariff barriers for example. And they’re not as stupid as you and you colleagues seem to think. They’re well aware that they can pretty much force the likes of Nissan, Honda and BMW to relocate to the continent where their main markets lie. The same goes for our banks, our biggest export industry. We currently export around £210bn annually to the EU. It’s not hard to impossible to imagine this figure falling by 50% in short order. How many people will that put out of work? And then who are we going to blame for our ills?

    Reply Nonsense. The UK is now 15% more competitive. Many BMWs etc are sold within the UK or exported outside the EU. These companies all have large commitments to UK property and staff which would be very costly to get out of.

  17. Peter Wood
    October 25, 2016

    We need to see real progress; we don’t need idle speculation. You fully know the reasons why, so I’ll not repeat.
    Mr. Redwood, please ask your colleagues to give us a plan to get behind. I do hope that the objectives will be published; this way we can see the sense and reasonable approach from the UK, and can judge for ourselves the reasonableness, or otherwise, of the EU.

    Reply MRs May has been crystal clear – take control of our laws and borders, get the best access to their internal market as possible.

    1. Peter Wood
      October 25, 2016

      The natives are becoming restless, you dally at the risk of losing support ….

  18. ian wragg
    October 25, 2016

    We could start by stopping the MOD spending £3 billion on overpriced German armoured cars. That doesn’t include the lifetime of spares and the specialist German technicians which will be required to maintain them.
    It’s time a genuine effort was made to rebalance our economy and that shouldn’t include buying French steel for Hinckley point and HS2.
    Why are we paying to scrap the jungle in Calais. Are you politicians really that stupid.

  19. Ex-expat Colin
    October 25, 2016

    If anyone wants a big expensive foreign car then pay for it..don’t wrap the rest of us into that. Same for most foreign goods really. I note that a lot of fruit comes from outside the EU like S. America, so dependency on S. Europe wanes in my view. I often buy stuff from China direct, so whats in the High St and local web is never on my priority list.

    What we can earn should go on debt reduction and improvement of our general services.But a fair list of internal expense needs major shaving as that undermines earnings.

    Energy needs fixing particularly the business of inter connectors. Ok… its nice to be friends but don’t depend on it because of screw ups elsewhere! And then there’s freight ships that some nutters nearby would like to disrupt in the name of green!

  20. Gareth Parker
    October 25, 2016

    John, why on earth would we want to impose tariffs on imported goods? WTO rules don’t require that and it would make us poorer. The whole point of free trade is access to cheap foreign goods – it’s that which makes us better off in the long run – why would we make them more expensive?

  21. NA
    October 25, 2016

    Yes I noticed you had a nice blue Jag, I am an Audi man myself. Jags never hold their price.

    Reply I have not owned a Jag for some time

    1. Lifelogic
      October 25, 2016

      The best way to get a car to hold its price is surely to buy one that has lost most of its value already, then just keep running it. Probably greener that way too. Plenty of decent, solid, second hand cars around for under £5000 so why do people spend £20,000-£200,000 on them?

      The new ones do not even seem to come with a spare tyre and tend to have lots of complexities that can often go expensively wrong! Mainly to meet the ill conceived co2 targets.

      1. NA
        October 27, 2016

        Plenty of decent, solid, second hand cars around for under £5000

        >
        Johns old blue jag is probably only worth about £2000 now.
        You can get them second hand dirt cheap.

  22. alan jutson
    October 25, 2016

    I hope the penny (euro) is starting to drop in the minds of EU Mp’s and Governments, that if they want to play hard ball with us in negotiations, then It will hit their employment figures more than it will ours.

    Sensible negotiations will lead to gains and friendships continuing on both sides, trying to make life difficult for one side or the other is usually a short term gain, as there are plenty of other customers awaiting around the World with money to spend.

    I can only hope our Government will stand strong and recognise the strength of our position, use it wisely, and not give it away cheaply.

    1. rose
      October 25, 2016

      If they cared about their youth unemployment they would come out of the single currency. It only benefits Germany and they know it.

  23. Peter D Gardner
    October 25, 2016

    I wish Mrs May were concentrating on how to develop UK as an independent Sovereign nation, that she would restrict her EU analyses strictly to arrangements for withdrawal, get it done in 6 months and tell everyone the news: UK wants nothing from the EU other than free trade, take it or leave it. Instead she is very busy with paralysis by analysis in order to develop a partnership or association agreement in a world record breaking timescale of 30 months, while neglecting fundamental and deep development of the domestic policies that are necessary to Britain’s future. She cannot achieve a good deal that is in Britain’s interests so she is most likely going to tie Britain into a new entanglement that is not and which we will not be able to get out of.

  24. margaret
    October 25, 2016

    Really it is like one big retailing soup, perhaps a little oversimplified, but what we gain in some areas ,we lose in others. I think though, this is only the initial decade and the UK will have found some other way of making us prosperous.

  25. NA
    October 25, 2016

    Now would be a good time for us to excel with the best engineering.
    We bought a Mini Metro when Mrs Thatcher told us to. Remember Talbot tappets? How is it German cars just feel so much better to drive?

    Reply I like the driving qualities of my UK car and have not found a German car superior.

    1. fedupsoutherner
      October 25, 2016

      Reply I like the driving qualities of my UK car and have not found a German car superior

      I agree John. I think BMW cars are overrated. Have owned one and wouldn’t buy another. It was one of the most uncomfortable cars I have owned. My friends ALWAYS bought the X5 but they recently decided to try the Range Rover. When I asked him what he thought he said he was totally converted and would never go back to BMW. Nuff said.

    2. Original Richard
      October 25, 2016

      NA : “How is it German cars just feel so much better to drive?”

      Could it be because they’re cheating on the emmissions specifications ?

      1. Lifelogic
        October 25, 2016

        Perhaps but it was rather a silly unrealistic test they had to comply with. Government stupidity as usual was the main problem.

  26. Peter Parsons
    October 25, 2016

    How about some broader context, such as comparing the tariff figures quoted to the relevant GDPs to see relative impact?

    In 2015, the GDP of the UK was $2.85 trillion and the GDP of the EU as a whole was $16.27 trillion, leaving the non-UK part of the EU with a GDP of $13.44 trillion. That means the rest of the EU had a GDP which was 4.72x that of the UK. The tariff figures quoted show that the tariffs on the EU GDP would be 2.48x those on the UK.

    Dividing 4.72 by 2.48 gives 1.9. This means that the impact of tariffs on the UK as a %age of GDP is 1.9x the impact of tariffs on the EU i.e. tariffs will impact the UK more than they will the EU.

    This is before considering any subtleties such as the price sensitivity of buyers in individual segments. Ask yourself who is likely to be more sensitive to price changes – a German buyer of a Sunderland-produced Nissan or a UK buyer of a Stuttgart-produced Porsche?

    Also, the UK runs a services surplus to the rest of the EU. While the article talks about goods, why no mention of services?

    Reply Services are all tariff free!
    What a warped logic – yes there is more impact on the UK because we import more! So we end up with more tariff revenue.

    1. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      I believe that taken together the EU also has more divisions than we do. And more tanks and military aircraft and naval vessels. This “We are bigger than you so you will do what we want or we will hurt you more than you can hurt us” mentality is pretty much what has led to real wars, not just trade wars. But then almost everything I hear from leading continental politicians flies directly in the face of their countries’ obligations under the EU treaties, treaties which apply to all 28 countries now and will continue to apply to the 27 after we have left.

    2. Peter Parsons
      October 25, 2016

      The quoted tariff impact represents 0.182% of UK GDP and just 0.096% of the GDP of the rest of the EU. Saying 0.182% represents a bigger impact than 0.096% isn’t warped logic, it’s simple maths, and I would expect there are people in the EU looking at those numbers and drawing the conclusion “the UK needs tariff-free trade more than we do”.

      And services are indeed tariff free. They can afford to be, because the EU’s WTO schedule on services has something far more significant – the requirement for listed services to be delivered from an entity located within the EU.

      If the UK ends up on WTO terms, that means that functions which currently deliver services from the UK to the rest of the EU will have to relocate. If functions relocate, so do jobs, and with them goes the associated tax revenues and economic activity.

      Companies are already planning for this relocation, some openly so (e.g. Lloyds of London) as they can’t afford not to, and locations elsewhere are advertising themselves to receive the functions and jobs which will move (e.g. Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris – La Defense, most recently Luxembourg).

  27. Brexit Facts4EU.org
    October 25, 2016

    Splendid article Mr Redwood, focusing on the positives even if the EU wished to damage their and our trade by forcing the WTO option on the UK.

    Overnight we produced a couple of pieces based on the Civitas report and data which your readers might be interested in.
    http://facts4eu.org/news.shtml#eu_tariffs

  28. Antisthenes
    October 25, 2016

    Savings on contributions and income from tariffs. It appears to be a win win situation. Reduction of taxes for the individual and business is the best use of most of this windfall. Extra spending on the public sector will mostly be poor value for money as they are bodies that are wasteful and inefficient most of which need privatising anyway. It wont stop government from showering them with it though.

    As you repeatedly say the likelihood of tariffs being introduced is small as it is not in the EU interests to do so. Brussels like all bureaucracies of course is not interested in what is in the best interests of those they are supposed to serve but their own. In Brussels case it is the EU vanity project of total economic and political union that they will protect above all else. If that means introducing tariffs to punish the UK and to deter others from leaving then they will do their utmost to achieve that.

    Germany who have the most to lose will no doubt resist that. She has certainly the most influence in the EU but whether it will be enough to bring all the other member states to agree that tariffs should not be introduced remains to be seen. France I believe will be hard to convince if only because they are a contrary lot. To do so they will want to see some considerable gain from agreeing.

  29. Lifelogic
    October 25, 2016

    Both Gatwick and Heathrow are needed. It would have been better to start with Gatwick as it could have been finished more quickly and with less political opposition. Why can the government not see this, surely it is fairly obvious?

    1. turboterrier
      October 25, 2016

      @ Lifelogic

      Common that would be asking them to actually think a process through!!

  30. Excalibur
    October 25, 2016

    In the Telegraph today, William Hague writes that Philip Hammond should ‘go beyond Heathrow’, and launch a ‘bold new infrastructure plan’.

    If we are to be several billions to the good, what better long term investment than to cancel HS2 and invest in a whole new hub airport such as Boris Island. It would underline the determination of the United Kingdom to reassert its role in the world, and to provide a platform for future aviation development. The supporting infrastructure development would also provide jobs and commercial opportunities for much else.

    1. rose
      October 25, 2016

      Hear, hear. And let’s keep the Garden Bridge too. No-one else has got one have they?

      1. stred
        October 26, 2016

        Rose. No-one else is daft enough to spend the money on a garden bridge when just down the river there are thousands of drivers every day in a 5-10 mile queue for 40 minutes at the Thames crossing, and paying £2 for the pleasure. The tunnels are constantly blocked by security escorts and safety measures, while the bridge flows freely in the opposite direction. The cost in lost time, fuel and health is enormous but we prefer to spend millions on a bridge with trees on it. How metropolitan and green our politicians are. Probably they have never been anywhere near the M25.

  31. michael
    October 25, 2016

    Does anybody know whether it would be legally permissable for the UK government to directly reimburse an exporter with the amount of any tariff they might have to pay on their exports to the EU once we have left the EU?

    Reply I have asked that question of lawyers, who want to be able to say it would be illegal but who have yet to prove why

    1. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      Ha, insist on chapter and verse and don’t be fobbed off with airy claims about it being “illegal under WTO rules”, often with “Don’t you know that?” added on.

      1. Margaret
        October 25, 2016

        I have heard many times. .Prats ! don’t they know!

    2. Peter Parsons
      October 25, 2016

      Have a read of the WTO rules on subsidies and countervailing measures.

    3. acorn
      October 25, 2016

      “Reimburse an exporter” is called a “subsidy” in WTO rules. See “Subsidies and countervailing measures” that importers can apply, on the WTO site.

    4. zorro
      October 26, 2016

      Where is it illegal?

      zorro

  32. Peter D Gardner
    October 25, 2016

    Just so everyone knows, Australia produces a very fine Blue Stilton, a white stilton and other blue cheeses; an excellent brie and varieties of other cheeses. It also produces wonderful table and fortified wines many of which are tailored to UK’s tastes for export and spirits.

    EU import duties on alcoholic drinks are 10 – 21% depending on alcohol content. UK could have these for 0%. It is estimated that the cost to Australia of the EU import duty on Australian exports to the UK totalled more than A$42 million in 2015. Don’t forget New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and the USA also pay these duties which hurt their exports. UK would have a bonanza outside the EU.

    1. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      Well, Chile has a trade agreement with the EU and its wine is tariff-free. That was where Daniel Hannan MEP went wrong a few weeks ago.

      1. rose
        October 25, 2016

        Odd, because when I looked up tariffs on the WTO web site, Chilean wine came out at 32% which is the figure Mr Hannan gave.

    2. SM
      October 25, 2016

      What sort of trade deals do we have with S Africa? They have absolutely wonderful wines, a gift for architecture and a massive need for trade to stimulate their flailing economy.

  33. Peter D Gardner
    October 25, 2016

    John Redwood: “It is difficult to believe they would want to make these large exports to us dearer. If they do then we will have the money to give in one form or another to our exporters as compensation for the tariffs they will pay. That will leave us several billions to the good. How would you like to spend that?”

    I have the impression that subsidies to industry to compensate for tariffs are against WTO rules. therefore the money should be spent on general export support; incentivisation (excuse the ghastly word), development of industry – such things as energy, IT, communications – technological development, infrastructure, training, export guarantees, particular support to small companies and to innovation, etc etc. Most countries do all these things, probably including UK, because they work. So more of the same. Above all do not spent it on featherbedding or protecting uncompetitive practices and industry.
    In addition, as a newly independent country, it should shift the balance of spending particularly to the things that ensure that independence, eg., securing its borders, maritime defence, supporting its own culture, educating and training its own people – even the Scots!

  34. Sir Joe Soap
    October 25, 2016

    We need to aim to get rid of business rates on manufacturing-related property. This is the one cost that hobbles the UK in manufacturing more than any other. Once a business expands, it takes on that extra burden of rates immediately, regardless of whether the new property is full or half-empty.

  35. Alan
    October 25, 2016

    The Treasury gains twice from leaving the single market: it does not have to pay into the EU funds and it collects the customs duty from the imports from the EU. Our exporters lose by having to pay the EU’s customs duty on exports. Some also lose by having to devote time and money to the extra paperwork to pay the EU’s customs duties and suffer the delays at the ports caused by the customs controls. All that will mean that our trade with the EU will probably decline, or rather not increase as fast as it might have done if we had stayed in the EU.

    The result is our balance of trade will be better but we will be poorer. We might buy more British made cars, but we will buy less cars in total compared to what we would have bought if we had stayed in the EU. The same will be true for all goods. We can expect some paradoxical statistics where the Treasury can lessen the deficit (which is where I imagine the money will actually go) but people’s standard of living will be less than it might have been if we had stayed in the EU.

    1. Denis Cooper
      October 25, 2016

      From Professor David Miles, last week, here:

      http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_17-10-2016-11-57-30

      “Miles responded by saying that it was easy to exaggerate the costs of leaving the EU. “If I take a simple average of estimates to the long run GDP cost, they’re about 3-4%”. He went on: “Although this is not a trivial number, it is not an enormous number either: it is the equivalent of losing two years of growth”.”

      However the German study I’ve cited before found that the benefit of the Single Market to the UK was below the average across the EU, about 1% added to per capita as opposed to an average of about 2%; so his “3 -4%” is probably also an overestimate of the benefit to the UK, and the GDP cost may be equivalent to only six months of growth. In fact it may not even be a loss at all when the costs of the Single Market are taken into account, it may be a small gain.

  36. ChrisS
    October 25, 2016

    Mrs May has obviously already promised Carlos Ghosn some tariff money to subsidise the production of Nissans in Sunderland to keep their investment money coming in.
    No doubt Honda and Tata motors will be joining the queue.

    Before long the whole lot will have been spent however, if it boosts our exports and improves our disastrous balance of payments deficit it will be money well spent.

  37. English Pensioner
    October 25, 2016

    I simply cannot understand why the government doesn’t simply take the approach of “We are prepared to continue to trade on exactly the same terms as present. If you want to change these terms, tell us and we will inform you of what we will be doing”. If they’ve got to all agree on a change, judging by the Canadian talks. the present arrangements would continue for years!

    1. alan jutson
      October 25, 2016

      Ep

      “We are prepared to trade on the same terms as present …..”

      Exactly, simple logic and an excellent opening position.

      For the life of me I cannot understand why we are trying to analyse every little possible turn, until we have actually enacted article 50 and then opened trade talks stated our terms and then find out their position.

      While all this is going on we are paying in more money, taking in more people with free movement of people, and leaving ourselves open to being controlled by more unwanted laws and financial bailouts.

      They simply need to get on with it.

      1. stred
        October 25, 2016

        Why can’t the civil servants and ex-Remainers understand this simple approach? We all know the EU would take for ever to decide how tariffs would change. Every country would want something different and the same would happen, as with Canada. But we would start with a position of no change on tariffs or standards of production and services. In the end, it would most likely be quietly forgotten and rules adapted to their situation, as they do with economic rules.

        The only reason for the delays and challenges is that they have a plan to water down Brexit and keep membership the same but without MEPs and those dreadfully embarrassing UKIP people taking most of the seats. Mrs May is mopping up their votes.

    2. Sam Stoner
      October 26, 2016

      I simply cannot understand why the government doesn’t simply take the approach of “We are prepared to continue to trade on exactly the same terms as present.

      Exactly the same terms as present include unrestricted free movement of labour, the CAP, workers’ rights, environmental law etc.

      Agree, it’s dead easy. Just abandon this Brexit nonsense and enjoy particpation in the world’s most tightly integrated trading bloc, which gives us half our exports!

  38. acorn
    October 25, 2016

    The Civitas note makes a lot of assumptions and none about elasticity of prices or the exchange rate affects; nothing about services. It is worth having a read of UK Trade:
    http://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/aug2016 , particularly Part 5.

    Large drops in the UK Pound exchange rate, don’t create large export driven trade surpluses. 1992 and 2008 are classic examples of the weak response from a less than dynamic UK economy. Also, import prices tend to closely follow export prices in the UK for some reason; hence the UK continually runs a current account trade deficit.

    The Pound Sterling is the UK’s biggest export. As long as foreigners are happy to SAVE in our currency and other Pound denominated financial and real assets, no problem.

    1. acorn
      October 25, 2016

      The thing is, what does the UK need from the EU, that the UK can’t get from elsewhere, for a similar price? What does the EU need from the UK, that the EU can’t get from elsewhere at a similar price? If the answer to both questions is “nothing”, then there is no basis for a trade agreement.

      We have the situation where the UK is exporting “demand” for stuff made by the EU. UK households are prepared to continually increase their private sector debt; and the government is prepared to deficit spend its budget; to make a UK export product called “demand” for imports.

      Can the EU find demand for its stuff from elsewhere on the planet and how quickly? How many BMW and the like will China and the emerging far east be importing in a few years time?

  39. Atlas
    October 25, 2016

    Some should go on the NHS, but most should go on getting the EU tentacles out of our life by supporting UK industry.

  40. Dave Andrews
    October 25, 2016

    Zero trade tariffs make good sense. It’s what we have now and is where global trade negotiations are heading. However, the European elite have been offended by us damaging their precious project and would punish us as much as they can to the detriment of Europe. This in turn risks alienating their own population with economic damage, illustrate to them that the EU is an abusive relationship and flag up to the world they are not a zone to negotiate with.
    The situation is very dynamic and unpredictable. Trigger Article 50 just as soon as the negotiating team is ready.

  41. Enrico
    October 25, 2016

    immigration was one of the main factors in the referendum and according to the remoaners we could not manage without it at all.Why I ask.Is it because we don’t have the necessary skills available?Simple solution,utilise the monies available to train up our own people thereby we could cut immigration even more.We only need immigration when we have shortages of the required skills eg.doctors,nurses,engineers,boat builders,carpenters etc.Lets stop relying on the rest of the world and look after our own people.

    1. stred
      October 25, 2016

      We could bring back carpentry, plumbing and bricklaying in secondary schools. Not that many NUT members could be found with skills other than equality awareness.

      Technical colleges for 16 -18s with no fees would provide employment with good prospects and less future wage restriction caused by low-wage migration.

    2. A different Simon
      October 25, 2016

      Enrico ,

      Where there is a shortage , it is usually worldwide ; i.e. there is a global shortage of doers because they have been replaced by talkers .

      There is no common reason for this . The reasons are usually different for different disciplines .

      Sometimes it is because education has been replaced by training in the misguided trend to attempt to de-skill (rather than address the skills shortage) .

      Other times the market place isn’t even aware that a skills shortage exists because it is happily misusing mediocre people and silver-bullet paradigms which attempt to ameliorate and mask the shortage of expertise .

      e.g. whilst nobody would not dream of getting a builder to design a house for them , companies frequently get software developers (“builders”) to design a database schema rather than a database designer (“architect”) .

      They only consider bringing in the real expertise to fix it retrospectively by which time most of the flaws are baked in .

      A willingness to address shortfalls by bringing in skills from outside absolutely destroys the price signal mechanism .

      If someone spots a gap in the job market , why should they invest £50,000 and 3 years to get the knowledge and skills from University needed to fit in that gap if Hm Govt is going to pull the rug from under their feet by fast-tracking cheap labour from overseas ?

  42. Denis Cooper
    October 25, 2016

    Somewhat off-topic, here’s a deliberately misleading propaganda piece from a source which used to be rather more impartial:

    https://euobserver.com/opinion/135624

    “The City is right to be worried”

    “The financial services sector is the UK’s biggest cash cow, employing just over 1 million people and contributing more than £66 billion (€75 billion) in taxes in 2015, equivalent to around 11 percent of total government tax receipts.”

    “In public, the government insists that it will do what it takes to protect its golden goose.”

    “Nor does London’s economic dominance make it popular with the rest of the UK. The wealth produced by the financial sector does not really trickle down to the rest of the UK. Instead, it has helped entrench the widening economic and cultural divide between London and surrounding south-east commuter belt, and the north of England, Scotland and Wales.

    By promising to prioritise migration control in Brexit talks, Theresa May has given a clear signal that she will prioritise provincial England.”

    Well, as a matter of fact it’s “provincial England” which employs most of those 1 million plus people, generating £66 billion or 11% of tax revenues, not the “golden goose” of the “cash cow” City of London.

    How do we know this?

    Firstly because just common sense says the work of most of those 1 million plus people employed in the “financial sector” has nothing whatsoever to do with international trade, with the rest of the EU or with the rest of the world.

    Secondly because according to a recent study, which actually got media attention:

    http://www.oliverwyman.com/content/dam/oliver-wyman/global/en/2016/oct/Brexit_POV.PDF

    in the worst case scenario, “where the UK’s relationship with the EU rests largely on World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligations”, “up to an estimated 31-35,000 jobs could be at risk, along with approximately £3 – 5 billion of tax revenues per annum”.

    Not over a million jobs, and £66 billion or 11% of tax revenues, but only 31 -35,000 jobs and £3 – 5 billion or 0.7% of tax revenues.

    Basically this is propagandists for narrow interests in the City of London falsely laying claim to all the economic benefits of the entire financial sector across the whole country; unfortunately some politicians, including some ministers, are complicit in these vastly exaggerated claims being spread around and widely accepted.

    And this is not the only case where a bit of export activity in a sector of the economy is taken to mean that the entire sector depends upon being in the EU Single Market.

  43. Bert Young
    October 25, 2016

    The chips are loaded in our favour if I have understood the facts correctly . EU countries will find their existence much more expensive without us and they would do well to come to a favourable deal . Germany is unlikely to release its reserves and the ECB will face difficulty providing back door assistance to the ailing countries . Ultimately pressure on the Euro will increase making it difficult – if not impossible , to survive . Once Germany faces the reality of releasing its goods at a revised value rate , it will suffer a shock .

    Everything taken together means the EU is in no position for a stand off with us ; they would do well to reason this out and negotiate sensibly .

  44. David Edwards
    October 25, 2016

    Whilst the EU may well contest that protectionism is a sound policy because of dissimilar markets around the world, and particularly wages, and although I disagree with concept of protectionism, the EU can hardly make the same argument between the UK and the EU, where our laws and more generally our economic culture have been aligned for some time – it becomes a solely political argument. I would hate to see tariffs raised on trade because they are punitive to the consumer and decrease overall utility, but I take the point that trade works well only when it is fair between countries/regions and though we might propose tariff free trade it can be accepted only with reciprocity. I am still though very sceptical that import taxes can be targeted effectively and will not just be lobbied or absorbed.

  45. Augustyn
    October 25, 2016

    Why not set up manufacturing Free Trade Zones close to ports and areas of high unemployment up North. Goods for processing could be imported and exported free of tariffs. added value might not be taxed at all. Business rates would be waived. Tax would only be paid in the form of VAT on supplies into the UK domestic market and on staff wages etc..
    If I recall correctly there are now no Free Zones in EU Europe as they are incompatible with the single market.

  46. ian
    October 25, 2016

    Getting out on the 1st jan 2017 and saving over 20 billion over two years and having wto on the EU for two years while you think about it which as john points out would bring another 18 billion over two years , as you are already spending loads mostly on wrong things you could of cut the yearly debt by 20 billion a year for a changed.

  47. A different Simon
    October 25, 2016

    Subsidise university tuition fees dramatically and write off student loans for English , Welsh and Northern Irish students .

    This should be done after right-sizing academia which has become bloated on the amount of money sloshing around in the quasi-public and third sector .

  48. Ed Mahony
    October 25, 2016

    Great. Now our great city of London, my favourite city in the world, is going to be turned a bit more into a sh*t-hole with even more planes flying over, increasing noise pollution – one of the most off-putting types of annoyances there is – not just bad for Londoners, and tourists, but also for foreigners looking to work and live in the City of London. Meanwhile, the north of England goes neglected, and we could have developed Gatwick …
    First Arm, then Hinkley and now this.

  49. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    October 25, 2016

    Based on logic? Human affairs, with all the innuendos up for grabs, works on the irrational.
    Even a reminder, a repeat in itself, that we are going round in circles discussing pre-referendum arguments is the state of play. The EU will not respond logically. It can’t.
    The trail of logicality will grow colder even speaking with individual EU nation-states.

    The unwieldy EU will react more understandably and possibly to our acceptance if we present it with the event rather than a discussion of the possible event.

    Easy to harp back to the wars in Europe but they are in our living experience. Irrational.
    We have not got time to argue Canadian-style as with CETA. We need an economic assessment of short/medium/ long-term pluses and negatives if we move very much more quickly than the EU can move. Our precocity will cut out and make clear years of their thinking of a myriad of ifs and buts. Faced with Yes or No rather than LibDem style iffybuttymaybees is the modern equivalent, I admit, of “If you shout loud enough they’ll understand”

  50. prigger
    October 25, 2016

    Off Topic:
    Heathrow: Good, a fast decision. Certainty!
    Hinkley: Certainty!
    HS2: Certainty

    Now bring forward the signing of Article 50.The Court can then make a judgement on a past event. It will enjoy all the piles of extra documents.

    1. stred
      October 27, 2016

      Heathrow: Decision after 20 years. Over twice as expensive as Gatwick, longer to build and challenged all the way.Certainty.
      Hinkley: Decision after ten years. Over twice as expensive as £ other tested designs, has not been made to work yet and we pay if it doesn’t. Certainty.
      HS2: Ploughing on despite costs going up. Probably twice as expensive and reasons for building changing as last one discredited. Connectivity not designed into route. Certainty.
      Bungling by civil servants and useless ministers promoted for not being awkward. Absolute Certainty.

      1. stred
        October 27, 2016

        3 not £

  51. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    October 25, 2016

    It is an old philosophical question but can a government or organisation of any kind actually “care” or “think” or in this case, the EU, can it react with any clear thinking than that generated by the cerebral cortex of a squirrel? No. A squirrel does not think. It reacts and pre-reacts with stored reaction-information. The EU is worse than a squirrel’s “brain”; for it is not alive.
    So we should not attribute to the EU qualities it cannot possess. Pointless debating, negotiating, with a lawn mower unless you are out of your mind. So we must treat the EU for what it is and get on with Brexit in earnest making sure it does not lurch to one side with unbalanced weight and cut down our red rose.
    It must be given clear instructions in what we the UK are going to do. In fairness the EU has actually stated this.”We cannot do anything until you sign Article 50″ Are we deaf or daft?

  52. Denis Cooper
    October 25, 2016

    The first bar chart here:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/25/brexit-could-pull-the-pin-out-of-the-eu-grenade-thats-why-the-eu/

    is interesting because it shows the yawning gap between the desires of the British people and those of the German people, especially, when it comes to the future of the EU and their country’s relationship with it.

    Only 2% of Britons want a single European government, while another 5% say they would like to increase the powers of the EU, 7% taken together; in contrast 16% of Germans favour working towards a single European government, while another 23% want more powers passed to the EU, 39% taken together.

    Excluding Don’t Knows, 13% of the sample, it turns out that 52% of Britons are in favour of leaving the EU – just as in the referendum! – with the 48% who are opposed to outright withdrawal including 26% who still harbour the impossible dream of staying in the EU but reducing its powers – some of those pop up to comment on this blog – and 12% who cling to the idea of just leaving things as they are, as if just leaving things as they are has ever been or will ever be part of the EEC/EC/EU/USE project.

    This is not a rogue poll, similar patterns have been found in past years and make it clear why we made the correct decision on June 23rd; now we want the government to get on and implement that decision as promised before the vote.

  53. fedupsoutherner
    October 25, 2016

    We could spend some helping our fishermen get back their boats and start their businesses again. Please don’t spend it on renewables as they are a waste of space.

  54. Original Richard
    October 25, 2016

    Having seen the difficulties the EU is experiencing with coming to a trade agreement with Canada it is clear that the EU will not be able to decide unaminously upon any changes to its trading terms with the UK upon Brexit and consequently the UK’s trade with the EU can be expected to continue unchanged after Brexit.

    1. bratwurst
      October 25, 2016

      There are no trading terms unless we mutually negotiate & agree them. We would be truly stuffed – forget WTO option, it would be a disaster despite Redwood’s constantly trying to push us into it.

  55. Original Richard
    October 25, 2016

    How can Nicola Sturgeon expect to be informed of the UK’s negotiating strategy for Brexit when she is against Brexit and intends to do everything in her power for the UK to remain in the EU ?

    1. turboterrier
      October 25, 2016

      @ Original Richard

      Please try and remember that Empress Nick of La La land as the DM call her walks on water here in dictatorship Scotland.

  56. NoMoreEU
    October 25, 2016

    Amidst all the talk over the EU financial services passporting, I have seen little clarity on the actual value to the UK economy.

    Remainers are using numbers like…”financial services are 80% of our economy” and ” there are 2 milion workers in the City”.

    I think matters are being over-exaggerated and numbers for the whole UK financial services ‘ industry are being used, deceitfully.

    The numbers I have found, from Government statistics, suggest that financial services passporting into the EU was equal to 1.1% of UK GDP (in 2015).

    I would like to have some accurate facts to use, in my lonely task, of countering the Remoaners inaccurate, pro-EU propaganda.

    Are the above numbers accurate or can somebody please correct me.?

    Indeed, what are the best estimates, on a worst case scenario of losing EU passporting…the jobs lost…effect on GDP…billions of EU imported financial services…billions of UK exported financial services?

  57. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    October 25, 2016

    “THEY’ve got used to it” was the reply of a local ex-MP in regard to a question I put that increasingly we are monitored by camera and microphone on our streets and in our pubs and restaurants.
    Similarly, in a sense, we have “got used to it” that the heads of companies have a more-than-equal opinion of what we as a nation and people do vis-a-vis the EU.
    One ( I ), would wish that Government would understand ( in administrative terms for want of a more apt term ) that We The People do not give a Tinkers’ Curse what the “Captains” of Industry think about anything, anything at all, from sunburn to big-toe warts.
    The Leave Campaign has unleashed the British well, it is not a lion, not a dragon, but something , unleashed,- a disrespect for persons of respectability. We see them putting devil’s advocate obstacles of our expressed Will. Their intellectual theoretical oppositional “arguments” are unwelcome. They stand in the way like wild nettles of our Freedom.
    Tariff money? Like the tariffs the British , French and Americans imposed on Japanese exports prior to the Second Worlds War? Let those who passed their 11+ think on it! We of Secondary Modern School have voted Leave. Less educated from 11 onwards. But our hearts are British which is an A+Pass.

  58. ian
    October 25, 2016

    I am quite sure if you had a bottom up system where the people are in control that they would want to save 20 billion a year like any business would but as you have a top down system with MPs who do not care about saving the peoples money because it not there money and they waste it as they wish, till the people understand that they are in charge at the end of the day and not political parties and should only vote for independent MPs that they control, you the people will get nowhere, you are lead like lambs to the slaughter at every turn also if you the people were in charge you would not have a yearly debt to pay for and your service would much better and well funded but if you insist on voting for parties you will continue to go down the pan.

    I do not know why people put so much emphasis on business when they are conning you every chance they get, they charge a fortune for everything they touch and then go to there accountant to get the tax bill down to zero, it your money they are running off with and then want subsidy on top, the whole idea about being a business is that they stand and fall on your own, i ask you, would you the people of bail out the banks and the elite in 2008, i do not think so.

  59. GigglewickUtd
    October 25, 2016

    Mr Carney’s continuation at the BoE and that of the Chancellor Mr Hammond in his role, is a cause of uncertainty and detrimental to the economy of the UK. Mrs May is unwise not to boot them both over the crossbar. Her understanding of rugby is to be expected.

  60. ian
    October 25, 2016

    As i see it the people of this country have already decide to leave the EU and if you leave on the 31st dec 2016 you stand to gain 40 billion pounds or more over two years while the EU is making up it mind what it want to do on trade and the rest but by that time you would of been 40 billion to the good and if you do not like what they have to say you will stay 20 billion a year better off but all you can do now is to watch your MPs piss it down the drain and most likely end up paying more than you and paying now because of party infighting and talk about getting a better deal, you can not get a better deal than 20 billion a year in your pocket starting next year. The only people holding this up are the banks who you spend a fortune on bailing them out.

  61. Mark B
    October 25, 2016

    I see my post highlighting the TRUTH about tariffs and the Corn Laws has been taken down !

    Why do you have such trouble with the truth and wanting to portray a FALSE narrative ?

  62. ian
    October 25, 2016

    You can not get a better deal than whats on offer now, thats 10 billion saving on the EU, soon to be 12 billion pounds and WTO rules while the EU is making up it mind over two year at 13 billion a year, i ask you where can you get a better deal than that if you come out on the 31st dec 2016, there is no better deal, MPs will make sure you will not get the money and you will up paying more than you are now, that what you get for voting for parties a bad deal.

  63. bankster
    October 25, 2016

    Hard to imagine how a chief banker in Canada could do anything but succeed spectacularly
    in a mineral rich country, oil, diamonds,and with an abundance of timber and intellectual people of the highest level. Mr Carney, is not doing at all well here.Obviously we lack his IQ

    1. stred
      October 26, 2016

      A lot of Canadians I met before he came here thought he had been pretty useless, after a property boom and bust.

  64. Ya'all
    October 25, 2016

    It shows the humiliating and pathetic weakness of the UK government that it does not declare openly in advance of the US Presidential Election, that Hillary Clinton will not be recognised as either the democratically elected President of the USA nor the Leader of the Free World ( As Americans and only Americans term it ).
    Enough information has been produced that shows her candidature is invalid on a whole host of considerations. This does not mean Mr Trump necessarily is a valid candidate either.

  65. Anti-EU
    October 25, 2016

    An increase in tariffs on EU goods should be implemented as soon as possible. “Made in the EU” and “Product of the EU” is a device to trick the consumer.Fraud. (complains that others make the good described as EU)

  66. Ed Mahony
    October 25, 2016

    ‘Crap Towns Returns: top ten worst places in Britain’ – The Daily Telegraph

    Now that London is going to have lots more planes whizzing over, will our capital city be eligible for the Crap Towns UK league?
    How a third runway will help Londoners, tourism in London, and attracting foreign business workers into the City of London, and enhance British sense of self-identify and positive nationalism is beyond me. When there are other options including trying to improve airport facilities and the economy in the North of England.
    To me Mrs May may be a good administrator, but she is not a visionary, strategist or leader.

    1. Ed Mahony
      October 25, 2016

      ‘When there are other options’ – Gatwick with high speed rail to Heathrow and London or build another airport somewhere else from scratch with as many runways as you like.

  67. ian
    October 25, 2016

    The worse thing that can happen as i have said before is triggering article 50, the next is what they call free trade specially when your a country that import loads of people and hardly sell anything overseas, since you have had free trade with the EU export have gone down and business have disappeared or been brought out by overseas companies, there is no such thing as free trade as you can see with TIPP and the CANADA deal, just loads of papers telling you you have free trade but if you have free trade why all the paperwork, that because it not free trade, the UK is a market that people want to sell into because it has loads of people and is a cash cow for companies.

    I wish you people would wake up out there and stop looking at the past and start earning some money, they all want to sell to you, they do not want to buy from you, like all the commonwealth they want a free trade deal because they want to sell to you not buy from you.

  68. ian
    October 25, 2016

    I see that the chancellor is only worried about the financial companies with talk with the EU, so not only have they cost you a fortune to bail them out in 2008, now they are going to cost you 40 billion or more over two year to sit around and talk BS on there behalf and the people will get nothing out of it but a big bill and most likely have to stay in the EU to suit the financial companies with the people costs going up all the time while in the EU, why do they not just hand the country over to the banks and call it a day, most people and business are already in the bankers pocket and looks like the country to.
    How to take over a country it people without firing a shoot.

  69. ian
    October 25, 2016

    Zac goldsmith could be your second independent MP in the HOC,

  70. ian
    October 25, 2016

    I see the EU want 700 million before the end of the year, with all these little payment hear and there you will end up saving 12 to 14 billion a year.

  71. fedupsoutherner
    October 25, 2016

    After listening to the news at 6pm and seeing how care workers are struggling to look after old people in their homes can I suggest that some more money is provided for councils to pay these agencies enough to really care for vulnerable people. Perhaps we have our priorities wrong when we pay out thousands to care for one migrant but fail to take care of our own elderly.

  72. rose
    October 25, 2016

    I would like dedicated bike lanes and all the rest to go on the Royal Navy so we can protect our interests, our waters, and our fishing grounds.

    But I would not like to see the Royal Navy reduced to a free ferry service for illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean or the Channel or the North Sea. Hope you can arrange that Mr R.

  73. turboterrier
    October 25, 2016

    Any money should be spent on looking after our elderly population nearly all of them over 80 served heir country and had a work effort and paid their taxes. We take in refugees to the detriment of our elderly population.

    Tax the greedy landlords who are host to all these stupid renewable energy projects leave them with 20% net profit from the subsidies they did it for, and look after the elderly many who are in fuel debt and poverty and cannot afford a care worker with the proceeds.

    When you have spent your whole life working and paying taxes you are entitled to a far better deal than that what is being dished out nowadays.

    Until politicians move out of their cosy constituencies and walk the view in less better off areas the status quo will remain the same.

  74. Christopher Hudson
    October 25, 2016

    The Government has made the decision why do the likes of Johnson and Goldsmith not show a United front. The next five years could be as important as 39 – 45 for this country. Getting it wrong and petty infighting can do nothing but harm.

  75. turboterrier
    October 25, 2016

    The money should go to the group of people hell bent on destroying this country.

    The Renewable Energy Industry. Give them one one off payment and repeal all their subsidies and easy money handouts.

    That way you start to make our industries start to become competitive and create more proper jobs.

  76. Avenger
    October 25, 2016

    “How would we spend all the tariff money if the EU wants to damage their trade with us?”
    Personally ,on something not made in or a product of the EU, which covers almost every product on Earth.

  77. Matt
    October 25, 2016

    You have made a fundamental error here; exporters pay nothing in tariffs – they are charged to the importer of goods. So yes, in the event of reciprocal tariffs being imposed, the government will raise a lot of money, but they won’t be collecting it from the EU exporters from whom we are buying goods, they will be raising it in tax from our own citizens/subjects (delete as appropriate). Likewise, the EU countries will raise money in tax from their own citizens every time they buy & import UK goods (albeit less than we raise from imports to the UK).

    Tariffs are not a deterrent to export, they are punishment for importing. The assumption is that the exporter will suffer a loss in trade because of the perceived higher cost of the imported goods, and that they will reduce their price accordingly. That will not necessarily happen.

  78. Clown-UK
    October 25, 2016

    off Topic
    Political Decisions
    Is the UK capable of making any decision at all about anything at all without someone or other whinging? Referendum vote…Heathrow…Hinkley…Hs2 …
    The world laughs.

  79. No
    October 25, 2016

    Negotiating…a coalmining union leader way prior to Arthur Scargill and much before the National Union of Mineworkers formation in 1945 went to the mineowners each day and simply asked in the midst of a strike “Anything doing?” and they would answer “No” . Thereupon he walked out. He did not win the strike.

    You could say: the moral is..be diplomatic, sit down to lengthy negotiations, smile, speak off the record, try to see the others’ points of view.
    I would say the mistake the union leader made was voluntarily walking in to meet the coalowners at all. They knew his address.

    So we come to the EU, or as it should be, the EU comes to us.

  80. Seppuku (切腹
    October 25, 2016

    The Tory Party seems to be doing a Labour Party.
    Brexit is looking distant with a Prime Minister who cares more for mixing up kids and mixing up priorities of Brexit with concreting a large part of London.
    Luxury. No serious person is ever going to vote UKIP again. No-one of one mind will vote LibDem. A ballot for Labour is a sickly protest vote. But Tory voters can hardly vote for a Party such as the Conservatives who as a group appear to have butterfly minds.

  81. Rk
    October 25, 2016

    Intriguing to see your eager anticipation of tariffs…

    Surely that 12.9 bn will be paid by consumers in the form of higher prices for goods?

    Remember the good old days when leavers said we could easily get a deal even better than the arrangements for Norway or Switzerland….?

    Immigration control; no payments to the EU; membership of single market… The EU would just agree to all these things once we were going to leave.

    Those days seem a long time ago now…

    Mr Redwood may have always been keener for the road we are going down… But I can’t help but wonder- if reaching a deal with the EU is so simple- why is it taking so long?

    1. rose
      October 26, 2016

      I don’t remember anyone on the Leave side advocating membership of the Single Market. That would mean, in effect, membership of the EU which we are leaving.

      Why is it taking so long? It hasn’t started as we are still in the EU.

      I would prefer not to negotiate at all. Just send in notice of our withdrawal and offer tariff free trade. Then it is up to them to put up barriers if they want to. They would have to get agreement on that from all 27 countries and all their regions where applicable. Until that happens, traders will be trading with each other tariff free.

      Other things which need to be negotiated can be negotiated after we leave, between equals, not between an overweening empire and its supplicant vassal.

      1. Sam Stoner
        October 26, 2016

        Boris Johnson said time and again that of course, given that the French want to sell us cheese and the Italians prosecco, we would get all the access to the single market that we have now.

        As to simply offering tariff free trade, you, like Mr Redwood, do not understand the law. If we make that offer to the EU we have to make exactly the same offer to every other WTO member – and the US will be in the lead of enforcing that. And the EU anyway cannot offer the UK tariff free trade unless it offers it to every other WTO member – run that past the French farmers

        Sorry rose, but all this is a lot more complicated than Mr Redwood (and Mr Fox and Mr davis) is actually telling you

        1. rose
          October 27, 2016

          Access isn’t membership. China, the USA, Japan, and others all have access without the punitive membership. This is the mistake the BBC and co. keep making.

    2. Denis Cooper
      October 26, 2016

      I wonder why you wonder why it is taking so long when you must surely have seen that the EU and other EU governments have said very clearly that the negotiations cannot even start until the Article 50 notice has been sent in, and apart from the UK government saying it needs time to prepare – as in fact the other side also needs time to prepare -there is the small matter of the court actions started by some of your less democratically inclined chums on the Remain side who in typical EU style refuse to accept the result of the referendum because it isn’t the result they wanted.

  82. Sam Stoner
    October 26, 2016

    You’re obsessed with tariffs. It’s one reason why no one in government has taken you seriously for twenty odd years.

    Tariffs are about 0.05% of the issue in international trade. It’s nontariff barriers that really count and a UK outside the EU will find its economy smashed flat by them – unless it agrees simply to follow EU rules, the way that Norway, Switz and plenty other countries less powerful than the EU do.

    As for “UK cars” – no such thing. Integrated cross-border production chains is the thing nowadays. If the UK leaves the EU, we won’t be any part of them, so UK consumers will have to choose between imported cars or no car

  83. Andy Jones
    October 26, 2016

    I’m going to link to this piece many many times in the coming months.

    Excellent argument.

  84. Robert Layson
    October 26, 2016

    All that trade requires is a range of different products and producers and various means of transport. Governments need not and should not concern themselves.

  85. Original Richard
    October 26, 2016

    Brexit will not cause UK trade ‘disruption’ – WTO boss :

    http://news.sky.com/story/brexit-will-not-cause-uk-trade-disruption-wto-boss-10632803

    Roberto Azevedo dismisses fears Britain could suffer a sudden seizure of trade during or after its negotiations with the EU.

    The head of the World Trade Organisation has vowed to ensure Britain will not face a trade “vacuum or a disruption”, however tough its exit from the European Union.

    Roberto Azevedo said that he did not believe the Brexit vote was “anti-trade” and dismissed fears that Britain could suffer a sudden seizure of trade during or after its negotiations with the EU.

    In an exclusive interview with Sky News, the WTO director-general also said that while Britain would have to renegotiate its membership of the trade body after its EU departure, the process was relatively straightforward.

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