Is there a good reason why this nonsensical and disingenuous article in the Times by Peter Lilley advocating a WTO terms Brexit not yet been given the rubbishing it deserves? thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
First we always get with this author that he has experience of the WTO. Not though sufficient to point out that most favoured nation is a rather misleading term these days, and refers mostly to a common tariff rate 2/ 
This is a textbook example of misleading use of data. Non-tariff barriers add a lot more than 0.1% to costs (see instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/non…) because they are not just border costs. And exporters are also importers, because of global value chains. 3/
The next part of the paragraph appears to advocate subsidising the car industry and farmers to make up for tariffs. Or perhaps compensating for the loss of car industry and farming? 4/
So we'll join the TPP immediately and do trade deals with the US and others. Could the members of the TPP have a view on this, or are we just colonising them? Also as frequently said, these are not economic game changers 5/
Particularly as we're going to default on the money we've agreed we owe to the EU (and don't bore me with replies saying we haven't agreed there's a debt - it's what the world believes). Other countries might not entirely trust us? 6/
This paragraph on Ireland is absolute nonsense. The HMRC reference is not as clear as presented (see bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northe…) and the paragraph completely ignores regulatory and SPS checks 7/
More good news, we won't have lorries queuing at Dover for entry to the UK. True. There isn't space. The queues normally referred to are for exports. Anyway, we can always open up new ferry routes (!) and let's ignore road haulage rules... 8/
Fortunately the author is a legal expert as well as a WTO expert, so tells us EU non-cooperation would be illegal. Unfortunately all three counts cited are wrong - the EU would just treat us as a non-member, which is going to require all manner of checks. 9/
The rest is just meaningless hyperbole. Though remainers threats of EU non-cooperation means EU membership has no value is one of the logical contortions of the year. 10/
Serious final point. In the US media they have fact checkers for opinion pieces, and this piece would fail horribly. It is utterly misleading. Is it not time serious media like The Times stopped printing factually illiterate pieces like this? 11/ ends politico.com/story/2017/12/…
