(Con):...You can
dispute these actual numbers, but it is hard to argue with the
general point that this would hurt them more than it hurts us.
Claims to the contrary are almost always based on models that fail
to assume current government policy; for example, that we will
agree free trade agreements with non-EU countries that account for
60% of our global trade. Despite 60 years of trying, Brussels has
failed to sign free trade agreements with China,
Brazil, India and America. Many of its 50 or so
trade deals are with tiny entities such as Jersey and the Isle of
Man. Again, Mr Azevedo, the director-general of the WTO, explains
why this is:
“Trade deals are difficult but there is an additional
complicating factor for the EU, which is agriculture … Once you
start negotiating with a big agricultural exporter, they want
market access—and, for the EU, that’s a sensitive sector, both
politically and economically”.
(LD): Is it not
the case that an EU agreement with India was prevented by the
UK’s objection to issuing more visas for Indian workers?
: It is still at
the early stage of negotiation. It is a long process and the
agreement with India is nowhere near ready...
(LD):...To be quite
honest, the most important thing has been the time pressures. On
the day after the referendum, we might as well have sent an email
to Mr Barnier saying, “We agree everything. Let’s get on to phase
2 of the negotiations around the final deal”. If we carry on with
this level of performance, then once we go out into the real
outside world and start negotiating with the hard-nosed trade
negotiators of the United States, Australia and China, let
alone India, we will be like lambs to the
slaughter. We have had an atrocious negotiation in which we have
given away our strategy and all our cards and have agreed to
everything that the Commission has asked of us so far. I do not
see that as acceptable, and it has not done our reputation
internationally a great deal of good...
(Con):...We start
these negotiations, uniquely, with no tariffs on either side. Who
wants to impose them? In assessing risk, why did this report not
press, as others have said, the overwhelming public duty of EU
leaders not to hobble access to UK markets for their citizens?
Where is that in the report? Free trade is the greatest generator
of hope, prosperity and jobs known to mankind. The report totally
ignores the benefits of opening up to a wider world that a bad
deal could actually delay. Canada, China, South Korea
and India are not even mentioned, while
Australia and New Zealand get one reference in a tendentious
context. Our great trading partner, the United States, creeps in
twice with no comment on the risks of free trade being kicked
into the future...
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