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Think about a no deal Brexit scenario carefully. Yes, the EU will suffer, but we will suffer much more... and the gap will widen every single day. Why? Because EU companies can replace trade with us with trade with the other 26 EU countries, with Japan, Canada, South Korea etc.
We, on the other hand, have no substitute for the EU, because we will face WTO tariffs with the entire world. What that means in practice is that our chances of striking a strong deal with the EU diminish with time. The ones on a desperate timetable are us, not them.
So we can fully expect the post-Brexit talks to be monstrously one-sided. We're out, so there's no real upside to them being nice to us any more. Instead, they can unleash their team of 500+ negotiators against our few dozen hapless stalwarts, and take us to the cleaners.
3 simple rules
- We will never get a better deal from the EU than our current one.
- We will never get the same deal as we have now (otherwise what's incentive for EU members to stay together?)
- A theoretical future deal will always get worse over time as our desperation mounts.
- We will never get a better deal from the EU than our current one.
- We will never get the same deal as we have now (otherwise what's incentive for EU members to stay together?)
- A theoretical future deal will always get worse over time as our desperation mounts.
After all, we will be experiencing a very special kind of British exceptionalism, as the only country in the world without trade agreements. (Ok, we'll have Switzerland, Chile and the Faroe Islands - but will that really let you sleep soundly at night?)
