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Since the 2016 referendum, the EU has secured free trade deals with:
- Japan
- Canada
- Singapore
- Vietnam
- MERCOSUR group nations (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay & Uruguay)

That means after Brexit, we're not just giving up what we had in June 2016, but a lot more besides!
Japan: €6.5 billion in exports, €11.4 billion in imports. Our 6th largest non-EU trading partner. Estimated 90,915 UK jobs dependent on our trade with Japan.
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/i…
Canada: €9 billion in exports, €14 billion in imports. Our 5th largest non-EU trading partner. Estimated 240,000 UK jobs dependent on our trade with Canada.
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/i…
Singapore: €5.5 billion in exports, €2.5 billion in imports. Our 16th largest non-EU trading partner. Estimated 9,878 UK companies export to Singapore.
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/i…
Vietnam: €654 million in exports, €6.2 billion in imports. Our 17th largest non-EU trading partner. Estimated 2,549 UK companies export to Vietnam.
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/i…
MERCOSUR: €4.6 billion in exports, €4.7 billion in imports. Our 20th largest non-EU trading partner. Estimated 113,000 UK jobs supported by our export trade with MERCOSUR countries.
ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/i…
I also talked about this in my book, where I referred to "The Red Queen's race... for trade agreements". Here's the relevant passage...
But the situation is worse than that, because several of these recent trade agreements struck by the EU have "MFN clauses" in them. What that means is both sides are prohibited by law from giving other countries a better deal unless it is given to the treaty counterpart too.
In other words, it is literally impossible for us to negotiate better deals outside the EU than we already have as EU members because there's a stack of legally binding treaties that say we can't ever be offered terms better than the EU already has.
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Edwin Hayward ('Slaying Brexit Unicorns' author)
@uk_domain_names
Scenario A (no Brexit)
GDP Year 1: £100
GDP Year 2: £102
GDP Year 3: £105
Total: £307

Scenario B (Brexit)
GDP Year 1: £100
GDP Year 2: £101
GDP Year 3: £103
Total: £304

This illustrates how Brexit can make us poorer even though the economy's still growing in both scenarios.
We don't have to have negative GDP growth to be poorer as a country. Growing less fast still makes us *relatively* worse off. (It's only fair to compare to the scenario where Brexit didn't happen.)

If I expected £307 but only got £304, am I
A) £4 better off
B) £3 worse off
?
And if I can point directly to Brexit as the cause of that £3 loss, it must surely be fair to say that Brexit will make us £3 worse off *than if we didn't go through with it*?
Read 3 tweets
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Edwin Hayward ('Slaying Brexit Unicorns' author)
@uk_domain_names
Quickfire Brexit Truth Thread...

1. We can't get decent trade deals outside the EU. Why?
We're the 6th largest economy but we're tiny compared to the sharks of the USA, the EU itself and China. (We already have trade deals with most other economies of any size thanks to the EU.)
2. We can't replace EU trade with trade with the rest of the world. Why?
The EU is near. The rest of the world is far. Look on any globe. Sea freight shipping times are guaranteed to kill just-in-time production (and rot fresh food). That geography will never change.
3. We can't replace sea freight with air freight. Why?
In 2017, the UK transported 486,000,000 tons of freight by sea versus only 2,739,000 tons by air. That’s 177 times less than we move by sea. It's literally impossible to bridge that sort of gap.
Read 6 tweets
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Edwin Hayward ('Slaying Brexit Unicorns' author)
@uk_domain_names
What many lose track of (even me from time to time) is that the legality of the referendum has no bearing on Brexit.

If the referendum had been squeaky clean, that might push us slightly more to try and implement it, however it wouldn't make *Brexit itself* a better idea.
It doesn't matter if 1 person voted for Brexit, or 1 billion people did... Their votes do not and indeed cannot influence the quality of Brexit. It's a bad idea because reality says so, not because of some fiddled plebiscite.
Of course, armed with proof (eg a dodge dossier on Russian interference) it would be easier to walk away from the terrible idea that is Brexit, but that's about implementation not about the fundamental concept.
Read 4 tweets

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Andy Gibson
@gandy
Brexit contradictions: a short thread. (1/15)
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Peter Foster
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The problem at the heart of the #Brexit impasse is still whether the UK remain in a Customs Union with the EU.

Solve this and you largely solve Brexit. 1/Thread
Both the problem, and the failure to address it, is writ large in May's deal.

Officially UK is NOT joining a customs union....but in the absence of unicorns we clearly are.

Either via the Backstop or when its clear 'other arrangements' dont exist to fix the Irish border /2
Unfortunately May never had the courage to confront her Brexiteers over this fact. She fudged in Lancaster House, and kept fudging.

Recall this time last year, as the Irish reality dawned, senior peeps like @DLidington were flying kites on this.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
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Axel Antoni
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1/ #Brexit & #PeoplesVoteMarch - have we wasted 926 days debating the wrong things?
2/ over the last 2 1/2 years I have spoken to many Leave voters across the UK while campaigning for EU #citizensrights. Global Britain, free trade deals, sovereignty , Canada+++, and migration, were mentioned at first but once dug deeper the concerns changed quickly.
3/▪️ Migrants depress wages
▪️Migrants take our jobs
▪️Migrants cause housing crisis
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▪️London doesn't listen to our concerns here they only do what the EU says.
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The Leave Alliance
@LeaveHQ
1. The biggest problem with the #Brexit is a failure to separate the issues from the personalities. The issues are more complex than the average pundit is capable of absorbing - especially when they inhabit the Westminster bubble. (thread)
2. What we find is that the level of EU understanding is pitiful even among the think tanks who are supposed to be on top of these matters. Worse still are the populist pudnits who bang the drum for Brexit but make zero effort to understand the process.
3. The Leave Alliance would be a lot more popular if we simply simply churned out pleasing populist messages but if we want to get the best from Brexit then we have to look at the situation as it is rather than how we would wish it to be.
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Julie Laumann 🌎
@Otpor17
"Trump has used Harley-Davidson as an example of a US business that is being harmed by trade barriers. Yet Harley has warned consistently against tariffs, saying they would negatively impact sales"

Harley, hit by tariffs, shifts some production overseas apnews.com/6c8942f7363743…
Important issue highlighted by @riotwomennn: are tariff exemptions determined by bribes?

Corker: "22,000 companies have asked for exemptions.There is no basis to deal with them. Are they going to grant these exclusions based on political contributions?"
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Read 232 tweets
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tony nog #FBPE
@tony_nog
1) Sir Ivan Rogers speech, a sobering & devastating speech from our former leading EU diplomat on #Brexit, its history and the UK position.

Should be read by *everyone* however I'll pull out a few key points in this thread

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache…
2) the UK already had the best deal of all EU member states. We may not have believed it but the other 27 nations did.
Anyone who thinks about this for more than 5 minutes would realise this
Cameron in fact managed to improve it further, but the press torpedoed his deal
3) the 4 freedoms are seen as indivisible by the EU27. Trucks & money having more rights to move than people is absolutely unacceptable to them. That's just a fact.
Anyone, Labour or Tory, who tells you we can get a great deal without free movement of people is lying to you
Read 20 tweets

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