There’s a good reason why the EU does not want the EU out of the single market. It’s not because they want us in, it’s because they do not want us out. There’s a considerable difference which I’ll try to explain.
Of course trade was only one aspect that voters had to consider when casting their vote (although it seems, for some unfathomable reason, to be currently trumping everything else). But sticking with it for the sake of this question, there are advantages for the UK by being in the single market. But there are considerable advantages being out of it. Principle among these advantages is that the UK can trade on its own terms with the countries that contain the 92% of the world’s population that is not in the EU without being constrained by a protectionist organisation whose member nations contain the other 8%. Part of the EU’s “negotiations” will undoubtedly involve trying to tie the UK to as many of those constraints as it can so that, whilst the EU may leave the EU, it is unable to avail itself of the single biggest advantage (in trade terms) that leaving will provide.
Of course there will have to be agreed common standards for goods and services provided (by both sides) as there are with any trade. But the EU’s protectionism goes much further than that. There is no reason, for example, that a firm making widgets for sale in the EU should have to abide by the EU’s Working Time Directive. Nor is there any reason why a firm making widgets for sale outside the EU should have to make them to the same standard as those for sale in the EU. Non-EU countries may have different standards and firms not trading in the EU (as 95% of UK countries do not) should not have to abide by EU standards. In protecting its own manufacturers the EU has enforced standards which many of its members manufacturers and traders have no need to comply with. Most importantly of all, no trade deal in the world insists, as a proviso, on freedom of movement of people in order for trade to be undertaken. This is the real reason why the Euromaniacs want to continue to control UK business and it a measure that must be fiercely resisted.
And so to Zacs’ test:
How do you feel about being lied to by the Leave campaign?
As I have said many times, I expect all politicians of every party and persuasion to tell me lies. It’s what they do. None of them had any influence on my vote to Leave, which I vowed in 1992 that I would cast that way if ever given tea chance.
What is your reaction to predicted NHS labour shortages?
I’ll worry about them if and when they occur. A statement made a few weeks ago about the number of EU citizens leaving the NHS was found to be manifestly untrue and the number of EU workers in the NHS had actually risen since the referendum (I’ll dig out the paper if required).
How do you feel about rising food prices?
Recent food price rises have nothing to do with Brexit. Furthermore, the EUs protectionist policies (particularly the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy) keep food prices in the EU high by imposing high tariffs on goods imported from elsewhere.
Do you think Britain has been weakened on the world stage?
I’m not in the slightest bit interested in the UK’s standing on the world stage. I’m more concerned with it being able to determine its own future without being dictated to by unelected foreign civil servants. No Remainer has ever explained to me why they are quite prepared to put up with this which would not be tolerated by any other democratic country in the world outside the EU. This democratic deficit will never be eradicated so long as the Euromaniacs draw breath and it is the biggest single reason why I (and many others) voted to leave. Trade and other matters will find their levels, democracy will not.