Except the EU charter expressly forbids Britain from making trade agreements with individual member states. So Britain will have to negotiate trade deals with the union as a whole anyway. Vie La Difference ?
A helpful reminder that Britain leaving the EU and Britain getting a 'deal' with the EU are two separate (but related) events.
Britain triggered Article 50 and decided to leave the EU. There's no deal necessary. From the EU's point of view (and a legal one), this isn't a negotiation, just a (sometimes less clearly defined) bureaucratic procedure.
There is of course the question of what Britain's relationship to the EU will look like after Brexit. And it is the EU's responsibility to negotiate a deal which makes that relationship as beneficial for EU member states as possible.
It's simply not their job to care about Britain any more.
Another point worth remembering is that several EU countries don't really have a significant trading relationship with Britain. Imagine if Britain had remained in the EU and Austria was negotiating a 'Brexit-style' deal, for example. How interested would Britain really be in whether that deal was good or bad?
You do realize that the free trade agreement with Canada covers way, way less than the EU does, even commercially, right? And that the UK wants way more from the EU than Canada wants.
Between sovereign states their is no friendship, no fairness. The UK has immense interests in keeping trade free with the continent. They also have immense leverage over Germany and their car industry in particular. It is in everyone's interests to see a deal that maintains free trade between the UK and the continent.
Yes, it's not fair that they'll get free access to the single market without following half of the rules, because they're stronger than Switzerland and Norway, because Germany and France need British trade more than the other way around.
Britain has zero obligation to be fair, only to use all of their power to protect and advance the interests of their people.
According to you it's the EU who will do these things. Britain and #leave wants a free trade agreement similar to Canada, it's the EU who won't give it to them.
Exactly this. One of the illusions of control people have is that Britain now has a free hand to negotiate trade agreements with EU member states. The EU charter expressly forbids this. So Britain (or perhaps merely a rump England after Northern Ireland and Scotland EExit) will be dealing with that same body but on unequal ground with other member states. Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss. I'm pretty sure you've been fooled (again).
But on the other hand, as a Canadian whose government was in the process of negotiating a trade agreement with the EU, now we'll have to draw up two separate trade agreements, neither of which is as unbalanced in their favour as the original would have been.
That is to say, the EU without the UK has less leverage than before, and the UK without the EU has less leverage than before, so now neither the EU nor the UK has nearly as much bargaining power as they had combined.
The countries of Europe are our allies and friends, the EU as an entity seems to treat the UK as an enemy.
The UK as a negotiating entity has failed to argue coherently, because the political classes are hopelessly divided and opportunistic.
It's important to note that the EU has not agreed to /anything/ in terms of trade as part of this deal, that's why it's a terrible deal. It's a deal to make a deal, but it includes us agreeing to pay massive outstanding budget commitments. So it's pretty much the UK surrendering their only negotiating leverage (and also the ability to revoke article 50) for absolutely nothing in return.
The EU /can/ enforce this on us, because of their relative size and our political disunity/mismanagement, but it seems obvious that they /should/ not.
An agreement which the British people could agree on would be a comprehensive free trade agreement and customs region(with us paying into budget) but no free movement, no deeper integration, and no ability for the UK to make external trade agreements. There are two fictions preventing this - the EU pretending that this is impossible or unfair (there's no law that free trade has to have free movement, it's a convenient political fiction for the EU), and the right Tories pretending that any external trade agreements would even begin to compensate for the cost of customs checks with the EU.
The UK is screwed but the EU is a malign entity, which seeks to treat us as they have Greece- a banana republic to be screwed by committee. A club which won't allow you to leave is ruler. Sorry for the essay, a remain voter.
edit: The backstop is not at all the most disliked part, it gets the most press because it's the sticking point between T May's attempt to shoehorn her bill through because it seems to lean towards a softer type of deal, which loses her the hard-right Tories and the Irish question loses her the DUP. But it's just a fight between the Tory clans who have power, if you polled the UK population or even parliament, it would not be the most unpopular part of the deal, not even close.
The EU is willing to negotiate a trade agreement. The UK wants that trade agreement to include full access to the Single Market, without freedom of movement. That's an unicorn.
If there is still a trade agreement between the UK and the EU, then lots of things in the UK will still be controlled by the EU, as the EU is larger and will make the trade rules. (Also, the EU is quite bureaucratic and thus not so flexible, so it will not be very willing to make a special agreement with the UK. It's EEA, Canada-style, WTO-style, or nothing.)
If you don't want the EU controlling any aspect of the UK, you can't have a trade agreement.
A free trade agreement does not require being in the EU. So of course they want one. The EU saying no is there way of punishing the UK, and discouraging any other nations from leaving. Hmmm. Freedom of choice indeed.
Well, nor can the EU have its cake and eat it - if a workable trade agreement cannot be reached post-Brexit, both sides suffer. I hope that commerce can be put above ideology here. I'd be interested to know how those in the EU whose livelihoods depend on trade with the UK would view it - I suspect they wouldn't care greatly about a little compromise if it meant keeping their jobs. What are the supposed amazing benefits of the EU versus having work?
No. We will now be free to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU (Which we currently are not able to do. The EU has been absolutely awful at trying to negotiate trade deals with other countries). We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole. Everyone in the UK knows those facts.
So, what you are saying, is that France will put its own interests before the interests of the other EU countries that might benefit from trade with the UK?
No, it's not "newspeak" and there is nothing contradictory about those things.
This is a long reply, but please read on.
EU has absolutely never said that they somehow provide automatic free trade/movement agreements with a random country on the planet regardless of what terms EU gets in return. If that is what you think, then I think you have misunderstood what the EU is about.
The key point is this: EU as a block provides freedom of trade and movement etc. to countries WITHIN THE UNION. This happens "automatically" for union member countries. When Czech Republic (for example) joined in 2004, it enabled a person from Czech Republic to move to Portugal or work in Spain. And vice versa.
Countries outside of the union, like Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan etc. have to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union. This is a process of give and take and often takes several years to make it happen in a way which everyone is happy with.
So: the EU is the entity which agrees on free trade agreements (and other agreements) with nations outside of the EU. This is the reason why e.g. Norway and Switzerland have the good trade deals they now have -- they negotiated those deals with the EU. (Note that this is also beneficial for the union member countries since, as a bigger entity, EU can negotiate better deals)
Now, Great Britain had these benefits as a member of the EU. But due to whatever reasons, which I won't go into to, they left the EU. Therefore the status of Great Britain reverts to the default state, which is NO AGREEMENT of any kind with EU.
The contents of a new kind of agreement is what people have been trying to rehash out from the day 0.
This is why it is different. When Great Britain left, they reverted back to a "random country with no deal in place". The fact that Great Britain is geographically in Europe or was in the EU in the past means nothing now; the situation now is they are not a member of the EU AND they lack an agreement with the EU.
To summarize: Great Britain has no deal right now and has to negotiate a deal again.
For what it's worth, unfortunately Great Britain appears to be not very enthusiastic to truly negotiate. They seem to have an idea that the EU benefits are possible without being in the EU, but of course such a thing won't happen.
And that has nothing to do with EU principles of free movement and work or fairness to the people of UK and whatever, it has to do with the fact that now Great Britain is a country outside of the EU and will be handled like such.
How "left" is different from "never been in" is that it is no different; the difference is that e.g. Norway and Switzerland have long ago negotiated an agreement with the EU, which spells out how the EU and that particular nation play together. And Great Britain has no such agreement in place right now.
If the UK wants a simple trade agreement then it can have it. But that's not what the UK wants. The UK wants an open Irish border, an open border between Northern Ireland and the main island, but without submitting to EU regulations on goods. That's impossible.
Single market without freedom of movement is possible, but the thing about the EU is that different countries disagree about what the good parts and the bad parts are. Austria, if acting alone, might be willing to agree to single market without freedom of movement, but Poland is not going accept that. And so on. If you compromise with everyone, well, congratulations, you've joined the EU.
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