Untouched by reality, UKIP then gets the idea that it can remove EU regulations which hamper British prosperity and competitiveness, but not a thought is given to those regulations (such as all the Codex rules) which are agreed at international level, which we would have to adopt anyway, even if we left the EU.
But then there is the principle of "national treatment" under WTO rules, which requires members to treat imported and locally-produced goods equally. Thus, if specific rules are applied to imported goods, they – or rules no less rigorous – must apply to domestic goods.
Since this rule also applies to the EU, when importing goods from outside the Single Market, EU member states have to obey internally all the rules (that are relevant) which are applied to imported goods.
In order thus to avoid conflicting regulatory codes between trading partners, the EU seeks regulatory convergence (where all parties apply the same rules, externally and internally), and to make this happen applies the doctrine of "conditionality", making such convergence a condition of agreeing a trade deal.
Currently, this is why there is such a problem with TTIP, where two trading giants – the EU and the US – are having serious problems in seeking regulatory convergence. In then seeking to slash EU regulations, UKIP is going entirely against the grain, and is unlikely to secure any agreements with the EU if it starts making deep cuts in what is still a common regulatory code.
Just to add to the complications, if such cuts are made, the UK could be in breach of WTO rules if it then tried to enforce international standards on imported goods. If it doesn't apply those standards, though, it could end up as the dumping ground for sub-standard goods from around the world.
All of this, though, passes UKIP by. They have their narrative, and nothing is going to stop them parading their ignorance. Than, adding confusion to the ignorance, we have UKIP's Paul Nuttall talking to the
Guardian about Brexit.
As he and his party see it, this newspaper is told, the UK should get out as quickly as possible, and replace the economic aspects of our EU membership with "a simple free trade deal, either with individual countries or with the European Union as a whole".
It is Nuttall's good fortune that writer John Harris is probably as ignorant as his interviewee on the finer points of this issue, thus allowing Nuttall to argue that this wholly unrealistic aspiration "would put us in a comparable position to Switzerland, whose dealings with the EU are framed in a series of bilateral treaties – but with one crucial difference".
"We're not Switzerland", Nuttall triumphantly declares. "We're the seventh-largest economy in the world, and we're Great Britain. And because we run a huge trade deficit with the EU, they'd need us far more than we would need them".
This is the great mantra, the get out of jail free, that covers every eventuality. But, for the 27 remaining trading nations in the EU, it simply would not wash. No matter how much the UK is "needed" – and perhaps not as much as Nuttall thinks – the EU is not going to breach its own fundamental rules, or those of the WTO, just to accommodate the UK.
And the thing is, we may have a trade deficit with the EU but, in the absence of a trade deal with the EU, is the British government really going to stop British traders importing BMWs and Mercedes, and all the other high value goods we get from the Continent?
But, in the UKIP book, anything goes. Their 24 MEPs – of which Nuttall is one – are over the five years of the parliamentary session, going to cost us the best part of £140 million, and this is what we get for our money: incoherent amateurs, man-in-pub blatherers with not the first idea of how the world works.
And the interesting thing is that it is this writer who gets complaints for being "negative" about UKIP.
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