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Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
, 8 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
In a free trade agreement countries remove tariffs btwn themselves. In a customs union as well as removing tariffs btwn themselves they also agree to set the same tariffs on other countries - the "Common External Tariff".
There is nothing to prevent countries from having free trade agreements covering most products but a customs union for a few. eg the UK & EU cld agree to an FTA that included a customs union just for cars. telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
In the EEC when tariff barriers came down countries raised non-tariff barriers instead. NB these *rose* in compensation. Therefore to make trade free, the EEC felt it needed to strip away those non-tariff barriers as well, creating the Single Market.
The EU will not accept a customs union that does not include restrictions on non-tariff barriers. To do so wld undermine the Single Mkt. Such restrictions will mean following EU regulations as well as the EU setting tariffs & trade policy.
The UK & EU wld not need to agree a comprehensive customs union to maintain JIT supply chains in cars. They cld just do a customs union covering cars & car parts, nested within a broader non-customs-union Free Trade Agreement.
Personally I believe the UK'd gain more from regulatory freedom in the automotive sector to deal with new tech such as driverless cars & electric vehicles than from losing that freedom in a sectoral customs union, but cld live as a compromise with a narrow CU within a broader FTA
What wld be absolutely crazy - "not even wrong" - wld be to leave the EU only to agree a comprehensive customs union with the EU. That wld mean the EU setting our regulations & tariffs with no say from us. Why on earth wld we want to leave the EU in order to do that??
The obsession with a comprehensive customs union in the Commons is mysterious. It can't be abt JIT supply lines - as I've said, we cld agree a narrow automotive CU to cover that. So why do MPs want the EU setting our tariffs & regulations with no say from us?
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Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
A list of economists taking the view that the UK belonging or not belonging to the Single Market makes no more than about 1 year's growth difference to GDP in the long-term.
The European Commission (p13, 2.13%):web.archive.org/web/2016050215…
The Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation (p1, 1.0%):bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/file…
Read 10 tweets
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Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
The most fundamental & enduring division in English politics was that over the Exclusion Bill of 1679. The "Tories" favoured allowing James II to become King, allowing England to fall under the pan-European political structure (at that time the Papacy). The "Whigs" opposed this.
As their Jacobite opponents discredited themselves the Whigs eventually became utterly dominant. From the mid 18th century on, the UK was a one-party state - the Whig Party.
The Whig Party eventually split into 2 factions. One Whig faction eventually, in the early 19th century, came to be known as "Tories", despite having no connection to the previous party called by that name.
Read 8 tweets
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Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
EU voter friends - I wonder if you've ever wondered what it is that the UK has objected to about various things in the Brexit negotiations? If you have, this thread might be for you.
Let's start with EU citizens' rights. What the UK wanted was for EU citizens living in the UK to have the same rights as UK citizens post-Brexit. What the EU wanted was for EU citizens to have more rights than UK citizens. The UK conceded on that.
Next money. There are 3 boxes the money falls into. One (~€2-4bn) is payments for pensions & the like. The UK was always happy to pay those. A 2nd (€17-18bn) was the UK's EU membership fee out to end-2020. The UK was happy to pay that if it stayed a de facto member til then.+
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@joshdelyon
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