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So we can still look forward to thousands of lorries stuck outside Dover.We’ll need to see the details of the deal before we know how far each side secured its negotiating agenda. But we know one thing already: this deal will make the UK poorer than it would otherwise have been. That’s not because of poor negotiation on the British side. In fact, the UK outcome seems to be slightly more impressive than what we would have expected in January. It’s because of the parameters of the deal specified by Johnson at the outset.
Leaving the customs union and single market means that goods travelling between the UK and the EU will be subject to a battery of checks. These include entry and exit declarations, safety and security documentation, and sanitary and phytosanitary checks for agricultural goods. Even the securing of tariff-free access to Europe comes with a painful bit of small print. In order to qualify for it, goods must satisfy complex rules of origin requirements. What was once frictionless and easy will become laborious, cumbersome and difficult.
There are certain natural laws in trade. You trade most with the countries which are closest to you. Putting up obstacles to it means you trade less. Removing them means you trade more. Beyond all the ideological noise, these dynamics are inevitable. They are the gravity of the trading world. You can deny them until you are blue in the face, but that does not make them go away.
And there lie the fundamental principles which will dictate the future. Over the next few years, as the brute reality of what the deal entails becomes clear, pressure will build in politics and industry to seek a more substantial arrangement.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 12:58 am I'd point and laugh if my own country wasn't so much worse.
Of course. The BrExit where Britain still needs to adhere to European Standards in order to have free access to the european markets or risk it's goods being subject to taxes and clearspira considers it a success.
