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Samizdata quote of the day

Because it’s being made very clear to us that the Single Market is Brexit. We are being told that if we want membership of that trading area then we’ve got to accept free movement of people (not in itself a bad idea but not really what people voted for), all of the regulation of the economy which the EU imposes, must pay into the EU budget and so on and on. Essentially, it is being made very clear that membership of the Single Market comes with all of the costs and responsibilities of full EU membership.

That is, single market membership is a denial of Brexit itself.

We do all know that a majority of MPs are against the very idea of leaving. Which is exactly why they shouldn’t have a vote on the matter. For accepting single market membership is tantamount to not leaving, it would be a reversal of the referendum by the back door.

Tim Worstall

22 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Phil B

    (m)embership of the Single Market comes with all of the costs and responsibilities of full EU membership

    That is not a bug, it is a feature.

  • Mr Ecks

    Screw the single market.

    No more EU.

    No more mass migration of RoP or non-western populations. None at all.

    What is going on is cultural Marxist scum trying to undermine and destroy the West by demographic means. Those they bring will not integrate and if we don’t stop it now we will have only the choice to either be a destroyed and hated minority in our own nations or have to fight a war to take back our own lands.

  • RAB

    The single market IS the EU. It is nothing to do with trade or Economics, it is a political vanity project. So staying in the single market means that we pay the subscriptions to the European gangster protection racket, we have to abide by all their rules and regulations, all their laws and their Buggin’s turn 4th rate unelected nonentity politicians telling us what to do and how to live, and who we can trade with, without their permission… Well bugger that!

    We voted out, and out means OUT, no pissing about.. OUT! Trade is dead easy. We have been doing it over vast distances since the Stone Age… You got something to sell? Well so do we. Let’s fix a price mutual to both of us and ship it out and in. Simple. Fuck your dreams of a United States of Europe. It doesn’t, and never will, work.

  • Sam Duncan

    “Essentially, it is being made very clear that membership of the Single Market comes with all of the costs and responsibilities of full EU membership.”

    Is it?

  • RAB

    Er… yes it is Sam. But without the voting rights. Not that the EU took a blind bit of notice what or which way we voted anyway. They just wanted our cash.

  • Paul Marks

    This is really not a complicated matter – leaving the E.U. (recovering independence) means that E.U. law will no longer be valid inside the United Kingdom and in our trade with third parties. E.U. regulations will still apply in our trade with people in the E.U. – just as Canadian regulations apply to our trade with people in Canada.

    If the E.U. wishes to start a trade dispute over E.U. not applying inside the United Kingdom – that is up to them, although it would be odd as E.U. (really German) companies sell far more stuff in the U.K. than we do to people in the E.U.

    As for immigration – it is a matter for the United Kingdom government, if the Chancellor of Germany (which is what the E.U. really is) thinks that British immigration policy is for her, the Chancellor of Germany, to decide then the German Chancellor is in urgent need of mental health treatment.

  • PeterT

    A lot of ill informed comments on this topic. Being in the single market is much better than being in the EU. You only get a fraction of the rules, and many of those are originated at a global level and ‘white labelled’ by the EU. Article 112 allows EEA rules to be suspended by individual countries at their discretion (no permission required) and we could use this with respect to free movement etc. At some point they may ask us to leave the single market or stop taking the piss. Hopefully by that time we would have reoriented our economy sufficiently to have an effective choice in the matter.

    The only thing leaving the single market has going for it in my view, is that it makes the prospects of us ever rejoining the EU very remote indeed.

  • Derek Buxtont

    True, we have always been a trading nation, but that was destroyed by Heath and his zealots with their lies and deceit, colluding with the EU, then the EEC false flag. After 43 years, numerous treaties, directives and goodness knows what else, we cannot just walk away. Our exit must be done in a proper manner whilst keeping in mind Trade and the fact that it is global these days. Were we to stay in the EEA and join EFTA we could trade as normal but would have the ability to slow down immegration. Industry would be happy and we could work out the remaining details at leisure. We must not just shut down the “single market”, being global it is far more difficult than had Heath not committed us.

  • It is basic constitutional fact that Theresa May does not need a parliamentary vote to initiate article 50, and does need one to repeal the Europe Act. One trusts a three-line whip will hold the line. In exchange for giving the tory Brexitters control of Brexit, she has conceded much (perhaps all too willingly, alas) to the wet wing of her party. One trusts they will honour the deal till we’re right out of the EU and then one may hope for better things.

  • Despite her antipathy towards BRExit, Theresa May knows full well that Tory divisions over Europe have been the bane of Tory leadership since at least Maastricht Treaty and many would argue since Heath became leader in 1965.

    While she may not like the decision that BRExit has handed her it does give her the justification to finally force the Tory party to accept that for Britain at least the EU journey is over and to unite behind that simple and obvious fact.

    Once Article 50 is served it becomes a fait accompli anyway, so such things as “3 Line Whips” for the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 becomes a moot point as after the end of the exit negotiations EU legislation would become irrelevant.

    The EU itself has moved on and they have made it quite clear that they are sick and tired of continual British griping and want us to just fuck off (albeit attempting to use access to the Single Market to mug us of as much money as possible in the process)

    I am quite happy for François Hollande and Angela Merkel to insist on free movement as the price for continued access to the EU Single Market, because it is pretty much the one thing that will prevent it happening.

    If Theresa May is going to have any legacy at all (which is all a PM really thinks about), then she is going to have to put on her big girl panties and genuinely negotiate BRExit as a hard exit of the European Union.

    Half-measures such as the Norway-model or Swiss-model simply won’t do and she knows it.

    We’ve already jumped off the cliff, so bitching about wanting to go back is pointless. Time to think about what is best for Britain’s future rather than worry about our EU past.

    Britain’s involvement in the EU project is over.

  • RRS

    Somewhere in the PMO is probably a dossier on the “evolution” of the Common Market into what is now discussed as the Single Market; but, which from reading will properly appear as an extension of the powers of the European Commission.

    It appears now to be a regulatory construct reflecting objectives determined by that Commission rather than by the adjustments (from cooperation & competition) of the differing objectives of actual participants.

    It seems to be essentially a politically controlled artificial facility. It is not a structure of “trade agreements” by which separate entities all agree how each will deal with exchanges amongst their constituents. Instead, it is the assignment of authority to a central body (state -EU Commission) to determine how all constituents shall treat with one another.

    It is not a “market;” it is a political construct.

    Is that not about it, Paul? You keep up with that kind of history.

  • Cal

    >Article 112 allows EEA rules to be suspended by individual countries at their discretion (no permission required) and we could use this with respect to free movement etc.

    I think there’s more chance of pigs flying than there is of the EU accepting that we can stay in the single market and then declare that we’re suspending the free movement of people.

  • Cal

    >Leaving the E.U. (recovering independence) means that E.U. law will no longer be valid inside the United Kingdom and in our trade with third parties.

    Well, apart from the fact that May is planning to pass all current EU law into UK law as part of the ‘repeal’ process.

  • Derek Buxtont

    Why are so many people ignorant of how the EU operates and what are the motives that govern it. It was designed to break barriers and as a bureaucratic, single socialist state. Bureaucrats have on aim to build their own large empires which is why our non civil service is so enamoured of it. Mrs May is going have to really hammer them to get them do do her, and our bidding. However, 43 years have gone since we were signed up to this shambles, despite the ones doing it knowing full well that one of the main objects was to lie about the Project. And our politicians colluded in the lies and deceit. Nevertheless, we have to move with some caution, there are treaties to overcome and businesses to preserve, trade must be maintained.

  • Sam Duncan

    PeterT, I was trying to draw people out, but you’re absolutely right. Whoever is pushing the idea that the EEA is just as bad as the EU – is “run” by the EU, requires acceptance of EU law, or contribution to the EU budget – has an agenda. And I’d suggest that agenda is to muddy the waters, push us into the worst settlement possible, and thus persuade enough of us, over time, that Brexit was the horrible mistake they said it was. It’s the Norwegian “legislation by fax machine” myth reheated.

    We shouldn’t fall for this and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The important thing here is to leave the EU: to end the supremacy of EU law and its Court of Justice. Anything else is jam. And while it was built on the basis of the EU’s internal “single market”, the EEA is not the EU. Although its members have accepted some EU regulations, EU law is not supreme, and the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction.

    It could certainly be argued that it was designed by the EU to create a European “sphere of influence”, and it probably was, but as an interim step, during which we retain the acquis up to the point of independence and gradually disentangle ourselves from the mire we’ve become enmeshed in over almost fifty years, it’s a useful tool to have on our belt.

  • Cal

    >Whoever is pushing the idea that the EEA is just as bad as the EU – is “run” by the EU, requires acceptance of EU law, or contribution to the EU budget – has an agenda. And I’d suggest that agenda is to muddy the waters, push us into the worst settlement possible, and thus persuade enough of us, over time, that Brexit was the horrible mistake they said it was

    No, I think it’s the exact opposite. Remainers are desperate for us to stay in the EEA. I don’t think any Remainers are trying to play the game you’ve outlined. It’s Brexiteers like me who want us out of the EEA (which I call a ‘clean Brexit’, rather than a ‘hard Brexit’).

  • Mr Tydfil

    There will be no hard/clean/quick Brexit. It is a vastly complicated matter that is going to take many, many years. The two years initially set by Art 50 is not enough time to conclude a bespoke FTA and relying on WTO rules is a nonsense.

    An interim EEA solution is the only sensible step. There will be transitional arrangements. A lot of people on here are going to be disappointed.

    I suggest reading the Monographs over at http://www.eureferendum.com

  • Patrick Crozier

    “There will be no hard/clean/quick Brexit.”

    Who knows, but there could be if Britain declares unilateral free trade. There will also have to be an enormous bonfire of the regulations to allow UK industry to export but I don’t have a problem with that.

  • staghounds

    “Brexit”, how amusing.

  • Paul Marks

    I repeat – independence from the E.U. means that E.U. law will no longer be valid within the United Kingdom or in our trade with third parties, outside the E.U. The regulations of the E.U. will continue to apply to our trade with people inside the E.U. – just as Canadian regulations apply to our trade with people in Canada.

    None of the above is “ill informed” – and if “Single Market” supporters do not like the result of the vote to get out of the E.U. (i.e. that E.U. law should no longer apply inside the United Kingdom and with our trade with third parties outside the E.U.) then perhaps they would like the try their luck of on the field of battle.

    If you (the “Single Market” supporters of E.U. law being imposed INSIDE the United Kingdom) reject the vote – then this matter will be decided in battle.

    Are you prepared to die in battle for your precious E.U.?

    I do not believe you are.

  • Cal

    You know, I think the EEAers would have a much better chance of keeping us in the EEA if they presented themselves as more rational, sober, and positive than they are. Instead they’re coming across like a bunch of hysterical, drunken, doom-mongerers have a breakdown-cum-hissy fit (cough *Anna Soubry* cough), and are scuppering themselves.