Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "Daily Mail World"
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Yeah, right.
The Institute for Government, a think-tank in London, notes that all big countries have bilateral agreements on such trade-facilitating measures as customs co-operation, data exchange and standards. Imagine, ifthe World's fifth largest economy exited the EU with no deal?
Hosuk Lee-Makiyama of ECIPE, a Brussels-based think-tank, says that only seven countries trade with the EU on WTO terms alone—and they are small fry like Western Sahara, South Sudan, Cuba and Venezuela. The UK will be joining this merry band of economic powerhouses.
In any case, reverting to WTO rules is not simple. The UK was a founder of the organisation but now belongs as an EU member. To resume WTO membership independently will require a division of EU import quotas, notably for beef, lamb and butter - I believe this may be happening again at the moment. A first effort was roundly rejected by big food exporters like Brazil, Argentina, the US and even New Zealand. The WTO proceeds by consensus among its 164 members. Were Britain to leave the EU on acrimonious terms, negotiating its resumption of full WTO membership could be difficult.
Brexiteers say trade with third countries would be easier. Perhaps, but the EU has free-trade deals with some 60 countries, including South Korea and Mexico, and just recently, Japan. It will not be easy for the UK to “grandfather” these deals, especially if it has walked out with no deal, if only because doing so would need EU agreement, too.
Then there is the WTO’s “most-favoured-nation” rule, which bars discrimination unless it is allowed by a fully registered free-trade deal. If after no deal the UK and the EU wanted bilateral trade to stay tariff-free, both sides would have to offer the same privileges to all WTO members. Services are barely covered by WTO rules, but even here, were Britain to seek to keep trade in services, the same terms would have to be given to several countries with which the EU has free-trade deals, including Canada. Subjection to WTO rules might yet prove more problematic than Brexiteers realise.
The UK does not need to reapply to the WTO on leaving the EU as the UK is a member in its own right, though currently operating through the bloc. The UK’s detailed WTO commitments on tariffs and barriers to trade are set out in schedules shared with the EU. On Brexit, the UK will need to have its own schedules and for those schedules to be certified, there must be no objections by any other WTO members. We can speculatethat the ability of any member of the WTO to veto proposed changes would mean the UK was at the mercy of countries playing politics with ulterior motives, say by Argentina over the Falklands or by Spain over Gibraltar. Or of course the EU themselves in the event of a no deal.
As such, the WTO is another ironic example of a process supposedly about “taking back control” handing real power of the UK’s post-Brexit fate to the whims of outside powers. Brexit is that stupid. It is the greatest exercise in national self-harm since the Easter Islanders cut down their last tree, but I will not speculate as to the social, economic, political and constitutional implications of this farce, as this is taboo.
You have little to be worrying about with regard to Continental perceptions of the UK. You should be reminded of the English taste for heroic failure instead. Retreats and disasters loom large in your culture, from Balaclava to Dunkirk to Scott of the Antarctic, the Somme, the list goes on and on. Kipling hints to the English cult of 'heroic failure' when he stated in 'If' that 'triumph and disaster are the same thing'.
Brexit follows in this rich tradition.
What a clusterf*ck.
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@johnt4768 The EU never bottled it.
It is important for your media to construe any concession from the EU...indeed anything at all... as evidence of the EU 'bottling it', but the fact is, the EU has the UK on a short leash, and everybody knows it. Frosty knew it, which is why he bailed.
The UK is the big bottler. It has bottled triggering article 16 for example, the threats to do so now are much more low key and for internal consumption. Last October the EU and the US told the UK that any plan to trigger article 16 would result in an immediate response, so the UK pretended it never wanted to trigger article 16 in the first place.
The UK bottled putting up a border with Ireland on 1st January. This is because the UK cannot feed itself and needs Ireland more than Ireland needs the UK.
If the UK wanted to do the right thing because the UK loves and cares about Ireland it would have stayed in the Single Market, preventing the need for the NIP. But we know where Brexiter priorities lie, don't we. In that context you have a bit of neck to criticise the motives of other stakeholders.
Finally, the three leafed shamrock, not the four leafed clover is the symbol for Ireland....
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