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@oflynnmep is wrong here. Short thread.
(1) We’d still be bound by WTO rules on subsidies (enforced by other countries through trade defence measures - higher tariffs on our steel if we subsidise.)
(2) More critically, perhaps, any trade deal with the EU (Canada + or any closer) will have State aid rules as a red line. As explained by me last week to @CommonsEUexit and in this paper.
You could avoid committing to State aid rules if you are happy with the same trade relationship with the EU as Belarus. But I don’t think that that’s @oflynnmep’s position.
But no EU politician is going to enter into even a Canada + deal with such a large and close competitor, with our huge volumes of trade, if we can subsidise where they can’t. Any politician should be able to see that issue.
(3) Also note as a matter of *actual* Government policy and legislation (the no deal State aid Regulations) that State aid rules will continue post-Brexit even on no deal.
(4) Also note that these rules have a purpose. In a free-for-all, each country would throw fortunes at industry to help it compete, or to locate in their territory. Those subsidies all end up cancelling each other out.
Subsidy races hurt all taxpayers. And in the end they don’t help anyone except large corporations touting round the world for larger and larger bungs.
The U.K. can’t in the end escape the systems put in place in Europe to stop that happening. But it shouldn’t want to, either.
