I do know that the honourable member for Vauxhall is too busy to read an introduction to WTO law. So allow me to help her in her quest to serve the British population and inform her that the anonymous article she refers to doesn’t understand WTO law (thread)
I will focus on WTO matters only. Because life’s too short. So. First of - the article refers to a “WTO-terms deal”. That, of course, is linguistic spin. We get the WTO if we do not get a deal. It’s not a deal. It’s the absence of one.
The article then discusses restrictions on our exports to the EU and the WTO. And (hooray!) it says one correct thing: a blockade of UK goods would be WTO-illegal. That is true. In fact, noone - not in France, not anywhere else and not Macron either, has suggested such a thing.
That’s the end of the good news, though. The article claims there won’t be any restrictions and if the horrid French impose some in Calais - easy, we’ll go to the Netherlands. All problems solved. Life can be so easy! This is wrong.
First up: the technical. The Netherlands will apply the same law as France. EU Customs law. What happens under that law? Before Brexit we were an EU Member state, after Brexit - surprise - we are not.
What are the consequences of this? Businesses need to register an EORI number, make sure their INCOTERMS reflect they’re an exporter, submit an export declaration, pay tariffs, get licenses where needed, submit to e.g. SPS (and other required) checks where needed, etc.
Don’t believe me? You don’t need to. Here’s the UK government pointing out what needs to be done. gov.uk/government/pub…
Will this leed to armagedon? No. As I have stated before there will be NO armed forces clashing. But there will be problems. Will those leed to queues? I would suppose so if you don’t employ more people. Will these be queues wrapping around the earth? No. But it’ll be a pain
Now the article claims that imposing restrictions would violate WTO law. To the largest extent that actually puts WTO law on its head. Under WTO law (what is called “MFN”) you have to treat ALL WTO members alike UNLESS you have a free trade agreement with them.
Under the premise of the article - no deal - there is no agreement between the UK and the EU. The EU is legally obliged to treat UK goods like Chinese goods. And the UK has to treat EU goods like Chinese goods.
There’s a narrow argument under the TBT agreement that possibly in limited circumstasnces could help us concerning some technical barriers to trade. Say some. I do not believe that is so. But even so - let’s look at that in the context of the article’s next claim.
The next claim of the article is that if the French (always the French with their great cheese and wine and their superior way of making smoke circles with Gauloises blondes!) pull something funny - the WTO will ride in and save us. Hooray for the Geneva cavalery! 
The French tried that once before, we learn, and the WTO brought them to Court. And they stepped down. Humuliated. And never did that again. Let’s look at this story in more detail, shall we? It is a story that tells us about the limits of WTO law...
First things first: the backdrop to the story is the battle of Poitiers. In the early 1980s France saw a huge spike in the imports of Japanese video tape-recorders. One is tempted to say ‘D’uh!’ Anyway, France took action.
It ordered all such imports to clear customs through Poitiers, a rather small office, with much scrutiny taking place. Clearing a truck of video recorders suddenly didn’t take a morning, it took two months. Unsurprisingly, the import of recorders dropped. Steeply.
This, I suppose, is where the white knight WTO (according to the article) rode in. The first problem with that is that the WTO didn’t exist at the time. It was the WTO’s predecessor. GATT. So, I suppose, the baby white knight.
But the GATT does not monitor members’ compliance with GATT law and bring infringement actions. Nor does the WTO monitor compliance with WTO law and bring infringement actions. So the GATT did: nothing.
However, two actors decided to do something: Japan decided to go to dispute settlement in the GATT (the doc is L/5427 of 21 December 1982). The other actor (embarrasingly for the article that claims the WTO saved the day): the Commission. Because EU members also had an interest.
The Commission commenced and infringement action against France. But neither the GATT case, nor the infringement case went very far. Why? Because Japan voluntarily restricted its exports. Those were the days of “VERs” - voluntary export restraints.
France thus got its limits to Japanese exports. And while such VERs today are considered WTO illegal the Trump administration is trying to bring them back. (My source for the Poitiers saga: World Development Report 1987, p. 141. You can also find two old NY Times Articles online.
We conclude: the article managed to get both substantive WTO law and the WTO’s enforcement mechanism wrong, as well as when the WTO started. So rather than having to rely on such articles, let me recommend a book to @KateHoeyMP , read e.g. amazon.co.uk/Law-Policy-Wor…
@KateHoeyMP Oh - and if you want to impress people with your library, of course you do need my GATT commentary. It comes in blue. Not cheap, but full of actual GATT facts amazon.co.uk/Trade-Goods-Pl…
