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Every major trading nation has close bilateral trading relationships with their regional neighbours. That is a statement of geographical and political reality.
Without such relationships in the trading environment of the early 21st century it is very difficult for a nation to prosper.
In Europe, most of the nations now comprise the EU which, as we are all aware, is by design more than a trading relationship. It is a political project. It is also an immense market & partially by side effect a global regulatory giant.
It is also not going anywhere. Contrary to more excitable comments, it is not collapsing. By opting out of the EU project the UK needs to adopt a different but of necessity close bilateral relationship in order to continue to prosper.
The simple fact of leaving the EU on 1 January 2020 extricated the UK from the overarching political objectives of the EU project.
However the UK government has sought to go further than this by departing from the EU’s entire regulatory structure & single market (SM) making us an outlier in relation to pretty much the whole continent.
We agree with the many commentators who make the point that the UK Govt has succeeded in this aim of extricating the UK from the EU design – BUT only at a headline level & at considerable practical cost.
In terms of practical effects and once the detail is drilled down into, the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is not a great trade deal for the UK. Certainly not in comparison to the EFTA EEA model which could be adopted.
The core problem is that outside the SM there can be no frictionless trade. We think this will be seen soon in many areas where people work and travel. These issues have been covered and will continue to be covered by many commentators elsewhere going forward.
What CAN be said is that from 11pm tonight any problems or issues that arise will derive from the agreement that the UK has negotiated with the EU. There is nowhere else to hide & nobody else to blame. In a sense that was the prize of Brexit.
Time will tell if the TCA is a robust enough practical structure to be built upon. In our view it currently prizes purity over pragmatism too much. The EFTA structure offers a better trade off in this regard.
We believe that the merits of rejoining EFTA and using those existing structures will become increasingly apparent as time goes on. We have every confidence that the public, business and Westminster will come to see that too.
With that in mind we wish everyone a happy new year and face the future with hope and optimism.
Next year in EFTA!
EFTA4UK
Next year in EFTA!
EFTA4UK
