EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Again the naive, 'the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU' at the end.

She may not be writing from an unbiased perspective, given the blurb to her new book:

A book about BREXIT This is a book to wake up citizens of Europe who thought that the European Union would look after their interests and well-being. This is what the EU set out to do but somewhere along the line the EU has been hijacked by selfish bureaucrats who only look after their own pockets and develop the EU into a huge undemocratic machinery where Europeans have no say. It is the EU that through ill-conceived (and fairly secret!) 'Neighbourhood' and 'Global' Migration Schemes CAUSED the migration crisis in 2015-2016. The EU kept the Open Borders wide open and did little to alleviate the human misery that ensued, both for the migrants and for the European citizens. The defects of the EU are now so ingrained that reforms are no longer possible: the system just does not work. Europeans do not want a 'Super-State' that displaces European Christian culture and European traditions. The EU must be dismantled and replaced by an inter-governmental Single Market that respects the sovereignty of the Member States and the interests of their citizens. The citizens of UK will be fortunate if they are allowed to leave the oppressive EU by voting for BREXIT on 23rd June. If they do not leave there will be little left of UK sovereign power to decide anything for themselves, including matters of defence and taxes.

The conclusion seems to be:

Since law, medicine and even politics are all based on common sense it would seem to me that the main and urgent issue is to disentangle ourselves as soon as possible from the rules and regulations of the EU. Why would we want to engage and discuss “trade deals”. What trade deals? The EU has taken years and years to negotiate a string of trade deals that are not even that advantageous to the UK. Surely the UK could just start its own trading under other arrangements? As an expert on treaty law, I fail to understand why you need any “trade agreements” to trade? I agree with businessmen like Tim Martin of Wetherspoon and Lord Bamford of Bamford JCB that to trade you just trade.

The idea that we can just leave is obviously true. But her conclusion, from an economic and IR perspective, is obviously nuts. She even notes earlier in the article that:

this could descend into a tariff war

Although she also claims that

it is likely that we would end up with this situation at the end of two years anyway.

But the potential backlash from our closest neighbours is the reason we wouldn't want to do this. A unilateral exit is a bad idea.

She hasn't chanced upon some secret (although she attempts to insinuate she has - there's lots of quasi-conspiracy theory language being used). International law is built upon norms. There is no body which can force a state for failing to meet the obligations of a treaty. But other states can certainly punish a state for not doing so.