Thread by @DCBMEP

A Reality check on @BBCRealityCheck and their Article 24 GATT summary thread #WTOBrexitNOW

Hi @BBCChrisMorris I fear your ‘Reality Check’ on Article 24 of GATT fails in a number of important respects. These are some of the grounds that need addressing please: see thread

@BBCRealityCheck @BBCChrisMorris 2/ 1.) You haven’t summarised the case for Article 24 properly. It is a simple, temporary basic Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between U.K. and EU which allows tariffs & quotas to continue at zero whilst a full and comprehensive FTA is negotiated instead, such as CETA+++/SuperCanada

3/ the EU has offered the U.K. this CETA+++/SuperCanada on three separate occasions (7th March; 2nd August; 4th October). It can be accompanied by ‘standstill’ arrangements in areas such as rules of origin and standards so very little actually changes as a result of ‘no deal’.

4/ 2.) You didn’t show Dr Lorand Bartels excellent one page basic Free Trade Agreement. @Lorand_Bartels is a Cambridge law fellow who can never be accused of being pro Brexit but is an Article 24 expert. He says that this one page FTA is all that is needed to trigger Article 24

5/ Bartels says this 1 page FTA is all that’s needed to trigger Article 24, and to allow us to continue to trade tariff & quota free. That is not “near mythical status” as you put it, it is simple legal reality, and is incredibly simple relative to a 585 page withdrawal agreement

6/ 3.) You claim as a reality: “But the vast majority of trade experts who have looked into the issue disagree. No, they say, it's really not that easy.” Who are Article 24 experts you quote, how many experts on Article 24 did you actually find and what constitutes a majority?

7/ Did you for example consult Martin Howe QC or @ShankerASingham? What exactly did they say about the use of Article 24 in these circumstances? Vague generalisations are not helpful if chasing ‘reality’.

8/ 5.) Have you spoken to EU experts too on the use of Article 24 in these circumstances? For example, the Chairman of the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament, which oversees all the EU’s trade deals, Bernd Lange, a German Socialist, has confirmed to me twice

9/ that Article 24 is entirely feasible and would be of course tariff free. Do please give him a reality bell? And try top EU negotiators too that confirm the same thing.

10/ 6.) You say correctly that Article 24 requires EU and U.K. to agree a deal. So what is the reality about why the EU would wish to do this? Can you confirm UK is the 6th or 5th largest world economy? That the UK is a mass importer of EU goods - £96billion goods deficit a year?

11/ That this means the U.K. will become the EU-27’s largest market in the world after Brexit?
Can you confirm too the Civitas estimate that the EU would be paying £13bn in tariffs on its goods annually, particularly as their exports are concentrated in high tariff sectors

12/ such as agriculture (40% cheese 12% wine etc) if Article 24 is not used (U.K. £5bn) - how much of an incentive would that be?

13/ 7.) In a purely pragmatic, realistic way can you estimate how feasible it would be for the EU and U.K. to agree a 1 page FTA that triggers Article 24 and which results in a full and comprehensive FTA, as offered by the EU three times, within the timescale allowed for...

14/ in terms of judicial challenges to the appellate body of the WTO by any fellow WTO member minded to challenge this arrangement? Can you verify then that it would be very likely to have concluded an FTA in the two or more years before any challenge may be heard, so that even..

15/ if these anonymous experts you cite were right that triggering Article 24 was found to be insufficient grounds, the remedy would already be irrelevant in that a replacement FTA would already be in place by that time, especially as the U.K. starts uniquely from a position of..

16/ ...the same rules, standards and regulations and already has zero tariffs and quotas?

Thanks - you would markedly improve this reality check analysis if you could. Best wishes dcb #WTOBrexitNOW