Thread by @DmitryOpines

Dmitry's Anti No-Deal Starter Pack:

1. The UKs trade deficit with the EU doesn't mean the EU is on the ropes;

2. The Civil Service did an amazing job, but huge chunks of No Deal are impossible to prepare for, or rely on preparation by businesses (many of which can't);

https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1116595458825043973

3. Average EU tariffs are low, but they are prohibitively high in sectors like lamb where the EU is the UKs only existing customer.

4. The EU is not going to offer the UK tariff free access on day 1 of No Deal. Not through Article XXIV, not through anything.

5. WTO Rules are a baseline, ensuring the EU can't deliberately target UK goods for retaliation...

But that was never the risk. The WTO rules are a footpath, and leaving with No-Deal tears up the EU SM/CU highway while the UK is still driving on it;

6. No-Deal doesn't have to make it impossible to do EU integrated business in Britain to be devastating, just more expensive/difficult enough to push firms to move elsewhere;

7. Services are a huge part of the economy and the WTO's agreement on services doesn't provide a fraction of the guaranteed access goods get. That will hurt;

8. EU can and will "take back control" by regulating to encourage UK services firms to move to the EU27. Count on it;

9. The UK's Northern Ireland no deal solution is a dubiously WTO legal bandaid which is unsustainable in the medium term;

9a. None of the "techinal solutions" or "alternative arrangements" floated are remotely ready, feasible or practical in the short to medium term;

10. No-Deal won't mean the UK can move on to other things. Negotiations with the EU will, if anything, take an even greater prominence and urgency in UK political life;

11. FTAs with others are years away and can't remotely compensate for loss of EU integration;

12. The costs associated with No-Deal vastly eclipse the UKs EU budget contributions. Reneging on UK commitments there won't mean the UK is flush with cash to throw at any problems;

13. UKs trade with Asia is growing faster than EU because it's not as established. Obviously;

14. You are vastly unlikely to see lower prices on store shelves even if the UK eliminates all of its tariffs entirely in a No-Deal scenario;

15. Driving a Fiat into Switzerland from Italy is not taking a lorry full of goods in. Switzerland's freight borders have infrastructure;