This piece by @mattwridley gets the law so wrong it’s hard to know where to start. thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
Let me focus on this particularly egregious passage. 
First, it’s important to realise the careful wording here (sleight of hand is an appropriate phrase to use). Ridley is trying to imply that the WTO rules he refers to mean there isn’t a problem.
But look carefully at what he actually says: the claim is limited to a claim of non-discrimination. A casual reader who isn’t looking too carefully might not realise what is actually going on.
A casual reader might think that non-discrimination means that the EU cannot treat us differently from the way it treats its own members (and Ridley is careful not to say anything to disabuse the casual reader of that impression).
But it doesn’t. WTO rules - from the famous MFN rule down - don’t prohibit discrimination against countries which are not in a general FTA/customs union. We wouldn’t be. So our treatment as a third country would be bound to be different.
Once you realises that, you realise why this passage is completely hopeless as a statement of the law and fails to provide any comfort. Ridley simply fails to grapple *at all* with the implications of being (legitimately under WTO law) of being treated as a third country.
No one is talking about specific measures (to use Ridley’s daft phrase) to “strangle” the UK. What those who express alarm at no deal are doing is simply drawing attention to the consequences of being treated, under EU law, as a third country.
Now, if you take food exports, there is simply no room to doubt that the combination of EU tariffs and SPS measures, when suddenly applied to us as a 3rd country, would cause huge problems. Tariffs would need to be paid and collected at the EU border, and SPS checks made.
That in a situation where there is no infrastructure in place in the channel ports in 🇫🇷 and 🇳🇱 to collect those tariffs or make those checks.
Even the most dogmatic of “no deal” ideologues (such as the one I responded to here) accept that that’s a serious problem.
And note too that even that ideologue was unable to dispute the points made by @DmitryOpines and @hhesterm that WTO rules really aren’t much help here.
Ridley also ignores areas - like aviation - that aren’t dealt with by WTO rules at all. The usual dodge is to say “but surely there’ll be an agreement”.
But as I said, that’s a dodge. Because the hypothesis at issue is a breakdown in relations. And the assumption that that breakdown could be managed by agreements is a highly dangerous one. Especially when the pain is concentrated on one side.
As I said earlier in reply to @RichardTol, arguing with people like @mattwridley is increasingly like arguing with creationists: they simply ignore argument and expert opinion, preferring comfortable dogma.
At least @BBCr4today managed today to surround @bernardjenkin (who was incanting more of this stuff) with a journalist who had done his research and could explain the real position. That is a distinct improvement. /ends
PS here is a really good thread explaining the WTO position. @mattwridley (and others who cite WTO TBT, TFA etc should not be listened to any further until they explain, with reasons, why they disagree with that analysis.
