Thread by @fascinatorfun

This article by ⁦@CoppetainPU⁩ reflecting on the quality of dialogue regarding Brexit, & the first casualty: the truth.

We Remainers must be careful not to pick “bad arguments” inaccurate information about trading on WTO terms.

Plenty good ones! politics.co.uk/comment-analys…

In fact my experience of Remainers is they are keen to get facts right.

BUT it’s v.easy for an error to gain traction at the expense of perfectly sound arguments located elsewhere.

Can we knock on the head that we cannot trade without full agreement from all 160+ WTO countries?

The better argument is we may struggle to win trade from a country in dispute with us over - say- Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) such as NZ lamb. They want to be able to export more to us tariff free (competitive edge for them).

Disputes also mean that we are trading at risk.

Uncertainty is bad for business.
Disputes can take a very long time to settle.

That makes forward planning difficult for business.

BUT the better arguments relate to expensive NTBs & the fact that WTO Schedules are not services orientated & that is the area of our trade surplus

That is quite bad enough. No need to exaggerate.

Plus the fact that our current WTO trade with 3rd countries is considerably eased by a large numbers of EU Treaties with 168 countries...inc the USA.

Those are gone on a “no deal” Brexit on 29.3.2019.