Thread by @eurorealist

1. Am I the only one infuriated with the view that if @theresa_may and @jeremycorbyn agree a #brexit #customsunion then all is fine. This ignores the fact that it is leaving the #singlemarket that is the killer for business making, importing or exporting products. Why? A thread..

2/ Much of the commercial debate around #Brexit has focused on whether we stay in the #CustomsUnion or not. That is because this is the current battle between #Conservatives and #Labour. If Labour prevailed, and the UK remains in a Customs Union, then the tariff issue dies

3/ However, the much bigger problem relates to the #SingleMarket. Neither main party wants to stay in the Single Market because you can’t have free movement of goods, services and capital without accepting the same for people. But abandoning the single market means...

4/ ripping the UK out of a continent of shared commercial rules
and compliance regimes. Once out, these rules will have to be replaced, be
recognised and be enforced. If you want to import or export in future,
compliance with these EU rules will require more red tape and costs.

5/ The @instituteforgov thinks 180,000 British companies will need to spend £4 billion a year making customs declarations after Brexit. But what about #singlemarket standards. Which are what?

6/ We’re talking EU security controls, food safety, consumer regulations,
environmental regulations, waste shipment, occupational health and safety, competition rules, public procurement, intellectual property rules, personal data protection and all the products standards

7/ But we won't need them post Brexit, right? Wrong. If you want to manufacture, you're going to need to apply global standards if you want to export. It so happens that most of these standards are enacted through the #EU so that breach of them can be enforced by the ECJ

8/ Deviation from conformity assessment procedures and harmonised EU standards will introduce additional complexities to operate in the UK market. UK specific product markings or other means to demonstrate conformity will create confusion and uncertainty with no benefit

9/ Many companies face changes to procedures, law or formalities eg re-classification of products, which will require changes to Organisational Planning/IT systems which will lead to significant costs for operators. This compliance guarantees trade in the #singlemarket.

10/ Currently trade from the UK to the EU27 is not considered “exports” and “imports” at all. Instead, the shipment of goods within the EU is "intra-community trade” freeing businesses from a large number of compliance procedures

11/ Companies know that no free trade agreement not even #CETA has to date come even close to solving any regulatory divergence question and allowing the type of free flow that they will need.

12/ So they are now going to have to grapple with Authorised Economic Operators registration, pre-clearing imports, up front VAT which @FBCManbyBowdler can do, but...

13/,,the real change is needed to either stay in the #singlemarket or make sure
- gaps areavoided in areas currently covered by EU regulations, such as
the "new approach" regulations (machinery, drug precursors,
medicines, pressure equipment, medical devices, etc.).

14/
- UK standardisation bodies are encouraged to participate
actively within the EU standardisation framework.

15/ Existing and future EU laws governing product safety, are a basis for UK legislation even after Brexit and must involve maximum collaboration on
sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards and consumer information
requirements for food products

16/ Britain's businesses will follow #eu standards in future and will have to pay for uk #compliance costs to guarantee imports and exports and will have to set up a new #bureaucracy to administer them.
#takingbackcontrol not.