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1/ Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are the main obstacle to modern trade. Understand what they are and how to remove them and you will see that more trade and prosperity means more international interference in domestic policy.
2/ One might then say there's a trade-off between prosperity and sovereignty. But it's not so simple because poor countries tend to have less say in international relations than rich ones and quite often become targets for foreign interference.
3/ So normally to maintain sovereignty you need to be prosperous. But to be prosperous you need to hand elements of your domestic policy making to international control. So you're gaining sovereignty with one hand while losing it with the other, but you're getting richer.
4/ There are however choices of how you sacrifice sovereignty for trade. You can do a deal with the USA in which as the much larger partner has by far the biggest say in decision-making, or you can be one of the top powers in the EU which is operates democratically.
5/ The choice is therefore between boosting trade and prosperity by surrendering sovereignty to a larger economic power like USA or pooling sovereignty with other nations in an organisation like the EU.
5/ Groups of nations can pool sovereignty without the democratic procedures of the EU. But then decisions tend to be made behind closed doors where influential lobbying groups can exercise their full power without public scrutiny.
6/ The undemocratic closed-door model is actually one that tends to please Brexiters more than the EU's democracy, because it looks less like a kind of super-state in the making.
7/ I think Brexiters would have far less antipathy towards a EU in which national ministers, bureaucrats and business lobbyists made their decisions in secretive meetings, than towards the far more transparent and democratic EU which actually exists.
8/ But the thing is, if you want the prosperity that breaking down NTBs produces then you have to accept international meddling in domestic affairs, and then the question is do you want that done democratically or otherwise.
9/ And remember if you prefer more sovereignty and less prosperity then your country might find itself the object of meddling by richer and more powerful neighbours.
