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buckets of sovereignty and trade purely on WTO
If we're getting into purely intellectual arguments like sovereignty, why do Brexiters believe that it is acceptable to bind ourselves to WTO rules?
For eg if we wanted a bespoke deal with Japan, my limited understanding is that would have to be offered to all other countries. Does that not bind our hands? Or am I missing something?
hugo7
@Dammit
Sovereignty and trade have to be balanced - free trade involves submitting to a set of rules that enable said trade. You can have veritable buckets of sovereignty and trade purely on WTO, with no acknowledgement of any other standards than your own - but trade will be proportionally harder the more independent you wish to be.
The thing I always wonder, when idiots bang on about "Global Britain" as a buccaneering free-trade capital, is "trading what, exactly?", the majority of our manufacturing is foreign owned and will leave, which gives us services (hard to put in a reefer and sell cheap to Brazil), and agricultural produce. Are we going to take over the world by selling apples?