We would decide what we set our tariff rates at though, the EU would have to impose a tax on agricultural produce to the UK in order to achieve the same and the result would be that European farmers would be unable to compete with British farmers in the British market
EU farmers are less dependant on the UK market than UK ones are on the EU market. 40% of our food goes to the EU, less than 10% of theirs goes to us.
Moreover why is it unlikely? By "basically" treating this as a Norway or non-members situation, are we not willingly ignoring the rest of the world? Don't see anyone arguing that Mexico, Canada or Singapore must join the EU to enjoy mutual trade benefits with the EU, unless that is to say that our situation is unique because we are a European country and thus for political reasons the EU will never allow a European nation to enjoy less than antagonistic relations without membership of the EU. This is especially in light of the Canadian and Singaporian precedents giving Brussels the power to give free trade deals to trading partners whether or not its constituent members like the terms or not.
A Free Trade deal assumes that the EU and the UK can come to mutually acceptable terms, which for the EU is likely to involve maintaining most of the freedoms currently possessed by EU citizens in the UK, freedoms which are big parts of why the UK wants to leave in the first place, such as freedom of movement and freedom of residency. This will be a sticking point in any negotiations. In the absence of a Free Trade deal the UK/EU trade relationship defaults to the WTO rules.
The EU exports more food to the UK than the UK exports to the EU, ergo any trade war would hurt French and Spanish farmers the most, assuming we made that choice to go tit for tat. Also assuming of course, that the EU wants to start a trade war, which is in odds with their wish for a free trade deal with the UK. Increases of food prices across the board will not help them, yet even a drastic decrease in food prices would not rescue them, the precariat can only be helped by one of two things: A drastic increase in employment and wages, or reliable social security. With much of the EU's food and wine producers dependent upon UK consumers, it's clear to see why they want to help us here; we'd lose out in relative terms, they'd lose out in absolute terms, and their agricultural lobbyists have not been quiet about it. Meanwhile we'd be able to conduct our own trade deals with the rest of the world which is where the vast majority of all our trade in all industries is conducted meaning that in the centuries to come we will be able to choose for ourselves what is best for ourselves, good that you mention the WTO for on the WTO, we'd be sitting in for 1 seat, not 1/28th of a seat. It's rather embarrassing that Iceland and New Zealand have been able to better represent themselves than we have on the WTO, and it'll be rather nice to no longer be paying subsidies to unprofitable farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy. Hell, we'd even be able to start adopting technologies that improve farm efficiency like genetically modified crops
As I said above, we make up a smaller proportion of EU food exports than they do UK food imports, in terms of actual food availability and proportional jobs lost we lose out more. The EU can afford to lose >10% of it's food export/import market (can't find exact percentages for the EU, but we make up roughly 8% of it's export market overall, or 17% if we exclude intra-EU exports,) Britain can't really afford to lose 25% of it's food import market and 40% of it's food export market.
Also, since when is 47% of imports and 56% of our exports the vast majority of our trade? 53% of our imports are from the EU, and 43% of our exports go to them. The EU alone makes up about half of all our business these days. (
https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-eu-trade/)
The CaP subsidises farms EU wide, including in the UK. Since we buy food EU wide there's little difference between subsidising a Spanish farmer who grows peppers we buy than there is in subsidising a dairy farmer who lives in Yorkshire. Either way we're subsidising food that is at least partially contributing to the UKs diet. How efficient it is is up for debate, as is how much value we get back in real terms, but the same could be said if a Londoner was subsidising that Yorkshire farmer in a UK outside the CaP.
We also can already grow GMO crops, provided they pass an inspection that determines they won't cause any environmental or health issues and undergo monitoring before and after entering the market in case issues arise. Spain already grows a lot of GMO maize. The UKs resistance to GMO is largely a cultural issue relating to poor PR in the 90s, what with the whole 'Frankenfoods will cause cancer' type nonsense that circulated then (which was stupid, though some variants that failed testing have caused some pretty major health problems in lab rats.) There are also a number of issues regarding them my lecturers at uni discussed with us, but they boil down to crossbreeding with wild plants results in wild hybrids that kill bugs that try to eat them which then disrupts the ecosystem. Manageable, but it doesn't take much to fuck it up.
While we will be able to negotiate freely in the WTO, we will also be less powerful in it. The EU is the biggest market in the organisation, which gives it a lot of bargaining power when it chooses to use it. The UK has substantially less bargaining power taken on it's own than the EU does as a whole, which will likely result in worse trade deals when we negotiate with other powerful WTO members.
So yeah I think the last bit is an issue that goes far deeper than food prices, it's the gap between the precariat and the working class, not even considering the gap between them and the elite class
Of course poverty goes deeper than food, it's still an essential thing that the poorest in society are already sorely lacking in. Rising prices will just make the matter worse for them unless there's a radical shift in parliament that results in unprecedented wealth redistribution. When tons of people are on the brink of starvation already, you take measures to make sure that's fixed
before you do anything that might make it worse though, otherwise you are essentially killing them out of sheer neglect.
Also how about a brexit referendum 2.0? Clearly people are not happy at the state of things. or are you going to use the you only get to vote once and that's supposedly representative for everything ever. seriously this whole election is basically a refutation of that idea.
There is currently no major party that would push for another Brexit referendum, apart from maybe the Lib Dems. The SNP would back the idea if it came up I expect. Labour and the Conservatives would both oppose another one, as I expect would the EU itself.
The only mechanism by which one could be raised in parliament by the public is a petition. After a certain number of signatures Westminster is required to discuss a petition, but they can dismiss it if they desire the moment they bring it up.
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Topic: UK Snap Election Thread - Darth May (Read 39442 times)