The EU debate - Part III

I’ve realised that there is a gargantuan misunderstanding at the heart of the referendum debate – a misunderstanding to which commentators and MPs are as prone as anyone else. It concerns the phrase “single market”.

Whether by accident or by design, the authors of the EU’s single market gave it a misleading title. What most people understand by the words “single market” is a free trade area – a zone within which goods, and possibly services, can circulate without barriers. But that isn’t what the EU’s single market is. The EU’s single market is a single regulatory regime. Membership of it doesn’t mean that you can sell your products into it: pretty much the whole world can do that. Membership means, rather, that you accept a common set of technical standards, and that you submit yourself to the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

When Michael Gove was asked whether a post-EU Britain would remain in the single market, he did his best to explain the difference. Britain, he said, would retain access to the single market, but it would not accept the supremacy of EU law. He was, for what it’s worth, stating the obvious. Britain would find itself in the same position as every other non-EU state in Europe – that is, part of a European free trade area by dint of an intergovernmental treaty. Andorra, Bosnia, the Faroes, Iceland, Jersey, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey – all trade freely with the EU while making their own laws.

http://www.hannan.co.uk/remain-campaign-is-misleading-voters-on-the-single-market/

 

This thread needs more articles copy and pasted into it.

 

He's got so many people on ignore that he misses the majority of the discussion. Basically unless you or one or two others post the answers he's looking for then he'll keep asking questions about matters that have been addressed at great length.

 

There's a reason the WTO strives to reduce trade barriers and basic economic theory argues against them.

 

Indeed! Especially, selected right wing rubbish ones!..-

 

Cue: "Business Insider is a right wing publication/idiot/loonie/owned by media mogul. You want me to comment on what was said? I don't have a clue."

 

So why should the EU want trade barriers?

 

They don't, it's one of the reasons it was set up. The U.K. has chosen to walk away from it.

 

I doubt they do ideally but a trade war is likely to be preferable to just giving the UK what it wants for various reasons.

 

The EU has little choice. If we step out of the single market then we are liable for the same customs costs as other countries. It's why Switzerland and Norway are prepared to pay a price and why Manufacturers prefer to build goods inside the customs union.

 

Indeed, but Davis is a prize cock

 

A TOP thinktank has warned that Britain’s membership of the EU is “not far short of a disaster” and that the Union has no benefits.

Civitas researchers found that the UK had recorded slower export growth than any of the other founding nations of Europe's single market.

Academic Michael Burrage, who wrote the report, lambasted the findings and stated the single market is “not far short of a disaster” for UK trade.

He added: ”While the single market cannot be counted a success in export terms for the EU as a whole, for the UK it must be counted at the very least a massive disappointment, and not far short of a disaster.”

UK export growth in the single market had slumped by 22 per cent to what it would have been had it continued its rate in the common market, the report said.

Mr Burrage also claimed there is “no discernible benefit” in the single market system.

He said: “There has been no discernible benefit for UK exports to fellow members from the single market programme.”

Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott said: "The unquestioning mantra that the single market has been good for British trade is wrong and should be challenged as this research makes crystal clear."

 

So the UK doesn't want trade barriers. The EU doesn't want trade barriers. But to avoid "giving the UK what they want" the EU would insist on trade barriers? Is that your view?
Is that something like: A man wants to have sex with a woman. The woman wants to have sex with the man. The woman doesn't want to "give the man what he wants" so she insists on not having sex. That worked out well!

 

Does this simpleton not understand the per capita stats posted earlier or has he got them on ignore as well?

 

Who said: "I didn't read what he said but I am sure Michael Burrage is a right wing looney."

 

What the actual **** is that ^

 

Having read it I can't actually see the relevance as it's referring to the weaknesses as an EU member. It does not refer to a UK outside the EU and whether access to the single market is a bad thing or a good thing.

 

Arguably your maddest work yet. It deserves a wider audience.

 

One woman's opinion versus many to the contrary.,...

 

It does indeed.,...