Then you don't understand how this works at all!
When the EU does trade deals it has to take into account numerous special interest groups - french farmers, german parts suppliers, whatever. That generally results in a deal that's not very favourable to the UK. We end up paying higher tariffs on many of our imports because Spain or France or someone else wanted it!
Admittedly, there are one or two exceptions where it works in the other direction - like the EU holding up a deal with India because of India's high tariffs on Scotch whisky.
But, in the main, we are in a position to do much better deals with so many countries than the one we've got now through the EU, because we don't have to protect various EU special interest groups. But, yes, it will take some civil service man power that we don't have now and it will take time (because the EU maliciously decided to threaten countries to not negotiate future trade deals with us till we've actually left!)
Incorrect. The most favoured nation clause puts a stop to that idea straight away.
You're missing three key points:
1). The MFN clause typical in free trade agreements, and WTO law itself, means that countries cannot offer us better terms than what they've already offered to other nations. Or if they do, they must then offer the same to all countries with which agreements are signed.
"Better" can be subjective depending on different scenarios, and perhaps certain agreements could be tailored better to us, but we certainly won't gain "much better deals". Far from it. It's simply impossible under existing laws to, for example, have Japan give us lower tariffs than what they've already given the EU (and by extension, the 28 members).
We'll be very lucky if we can merely replicate the terms we already have under EU membership, which brings us onto point 2:
2). Opposing sides in an FTA negotiation are not dishing out greater access to their own markets out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it to win better market access in return. This is a battle of self-interest where the country wants as much access to the other market as possible while giving away as little access as they can to their own market.
The results are lopsided trade agreements where one side "wins" more than the other. Just take a look at the China-Switzerland FTA.
The key is leverage. The larger economy has a stronger hand. This is one of the key benefits of the single market and customs union. Relatively small countries can band together to create an economy nearly as big as the United States with 500 million consumers spanning a colossal mix of different markets, tastes and industries. The EU alone is not far off 25% of GLOBAL GDP, so for facilitated access to almost a quarter of the world's economy, the EU rightly expects major concessions which the opposing nation is hardly in a position to refuse in most cases.
The result? Far more favourable FTAs than any individual EU member could gain on its own. So to expect the UK to lose a massive amount of leverage and still be able to twist the arm of other countries like the EU can is, frankly, a ridiculous notion.
This brings us to point 3:
3). While no country on earth is going to experience more than a 5%-15% disruption to their trade, we'll be losing the single market and EU-brokered FTAs that underpin more than 60% of our global trade.
This, quite obviously, creates a position of weakness in negotiations. We are desperate to build those back up as quickly as we can. We cannot afford to be as picky or patient as any ordinary country (such as Japan or Canada) could be.
Other countries know this, and as we're already beginning to see, they are playing hardball to win greater concessions that give them more favourable trading arrangements. Just look at the demands recently made by US special interest groups. If we don't like them, no US-UK deal. Stalled talks will make us sweat, not them.
Put all three factors together, and it's painfully obvious, on numerous levels, that we cannot, and will not, come out of Brexit with better trade agreements compared to if we had stayed put. This is not even a valid point of contention. The whole idea is completely detached from reality.
and are severely p*ssed off that 'their side' has caved on Clearing, but this sector is what generates a lot of the money that pays for the NHS and schools and all those benefits we hand out.
