Nick Phipps, Author at UKTPO

Economic realities of Brexit for firms and people in Northern Ireland

14 October 2019 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. With the current state of negotiations between the UK and the EU it is easy to see why attention is focussed on the politics of a possible agreement. The contentious issue is, of course, that of the Irish border. However, the focus on the politics means that there has been little discussion of the economic impacts and specifically of the vulnerability of the Northern Irish economy to the decisions being made. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-10-14T11:48:56+01:0014 October 2019|UK- EU|1 Comment

Johnson’s Brexit proposal is riddled with problems

03 October 2019 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory. At last, a chink of clarity. Yesterday’s proposal for the treatment of the Irish economy admits, more or less for the first time officially, that there are trade-offs to Brexit. Suddenly the laws of political physics are restored. You cannot both have your cake and eat it. The trade-off that has at last dawned on Boris Johnson is that if you want the whole of the UK to choose its own tariffs on goods, a customs border in Ireland is inevitable. And if you want Britain to be able to set its own regulations, then you need a border in the Irish Sea. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-10-03T11:41:09+01:003 October 2019|UK- EU|2 Comments

Free ports—preparing to trade post-Brexit

26 September 2019 Dr Peter Holmes is Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex, Director of Interanalysis and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Interview by Kate Beaumont. This article was first published on Lexis®PSL Commercial on 5 September 2019. How will the establishment of free ports enable the UK to benefit from Brexit trade opportunities? Dr Peter Holmes, reader in economics at the University of Sussex, considers the pros and cons of these special ports where normal tax and customs rules do not apply. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-09-26T12:04:19+01:0026 September 2019|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|11 Comments

UK food safety Statutory Instruments: A problem for US-UK negotiations?

12 September 2019 Chloe Anthony and Dr Emily Lydgate – lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The US remains top of the list of post-Brexit UK trade negotiations, with Boris Johnson recently putting a quick US deal as a first priority. The US’s strongly-worded negotiating objectives include loosening EU ‘non-science-based’ bans or restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, food additives, hormone-enhanced meat, in addition to the infamous chlorinated chicken. As former international trade secretary Liam Fox conceded, a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that excludes food and agriculture is a non-starter from the US perspective. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-09-12T12:05:39+01:0012 September 2019|UK - Non EU|1 Comment

Mimicking President Trump? – Trade and Politics in Japan’s Recent Export Measure

5 September 2019 Guest blog by Professor Yong-Shik Lee is Director and Professorial Fellow of the Law and Development Institute and Hiram H. Lesar Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law. In the last eighteen months, President Trump has re-introduced the use of national security arguments to restrict the USA’s international trade for commercial reasons. I recently warned[1] that the US use of security arguments to justify its additional tariffs on steel and aluminum imports would create a dangerous precedent, and shortly after that, another major trading nation has indeed followed this precedent. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-09-05T09:29:36+01:005 September 2019|UK - Non EU|2 Comments

Johnson’s alternative to the backstop would be just as ‘undemocratic’

27 August 2019 Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory The adjective ‘undemocratic’ has for a few weeks now been mysteriously attached to the Ireland backstop provision in the Withdrawal Agreement. The prime minister’s letter of August 19th to Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council, at least explained why: the backstop is said to be undemocratic because it binds the UK after Brexit into EU trade and regulatory policies in which it will have no say. This is not a new idea. From early on in the Brexit debates, many economists assumed there would be compelling economic incentives for a post-Brexit UK to remain in the European Economic Area (EEA). Alan Winters pointed out that this would mean the UK would have to pay (financial contributions to the EU) and obey (EU rules) but with no say (in setting the rules). The Irish backstop is not the same as the EEA, but ‘obey with no say’ is the ‘undemocratic’ objection. The prime minister’s solution is that the backstop should be replaced by alternative arrangements for the Irish border which would allow the UK to [...]

By Nick Phipps|2019-08-28T09:36:39+01:0028 August 2019|UK- EU|1 Comment

A look at new UK pesticides regulation: Part 2

16 July 2019 Chloe Anthony, Ffion Thomas, and Dr Emily Lydgate – lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In May we published a blog analysing the EU Exit statutory instruments (SIs) on pesticides prepared under the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. One of the key concerns that we raised was that EU restrictions on pesticides with endocrine disrupting properties had been deleted. After this omission was identified, DEFRA responded very swiftly, clarifying that the deletion had been accidental and releasing a new Statutory Instrument (SI). […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-07-16T10:46:24+01:0016 July 2019|UK- EU|0 Comments

Hiccups that make us reel

15 July 2019 Dr Michael Gasiorek is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Julia Magntorn Garrett is a Research Officer in Economics at the University of Sussex. Both are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. A favourite band (of at least one of the authors of this blog) from the 1980s was the Cocteau Twins (See, or rather listen to…Sugar Hiccup) – well-known for the dreamy unintelligibility of their lyrics. Which of course leads to the dreamy unintelligibility of some of the promises being made around Brexit. Supporters of Brexit have argued that the UK need not be overly concerned with a ‘No deal’ Brexit. This ranges from positions that ‘No deal’ would not be “as frightening as people think” although there would be “some hiccups in the first year” (David Davies), and that although there may be “some disruption” Britain would “survive and prosper without a deal” (Jeremy Hunt), to arguments that the idea that ‘No deal’ would have a negative impact were “a fantasy of fevered minds” (Jacob Rees Mogg). […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-07-15T08:36:26+01:0015 July 2019|UK- EU|0 Comments

‘No deal’ means ‘no deal’

03 July 2019 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory. Last week I was challenged twice for using the term ‘no deal’. There is no such thing, I was told, because, even if the UK does not ratify the Withdrawal Agreement of 25th November 2018, there will still be plenty of deals. At the time I thought, for several reasons, that this was wrong in substance if not literally, but more recently I have concluded that it is also dangerous. Like we saw in the referendum campaign, it undermines informed debate by deliberately confusing the terminology. ‘The deal’ is an agreement between the EU and the UK ‘setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union’ (Article 50 – Treaty on European Union). ‘No deal’ is the absence of such a deal. For business and the economy, ‘no deal’ has come to mean the absence of a trade agreement under which the UK and the EU trade with each other on terms better than those provided for under the World Trade Organization. The former ‘no deal’ implies the latter – as I argue below [...]

By Nick Phipps|2019-07-03T08:22:33+01:003 July 2019|UK- EU|5 Comments

Ambition and reality: a UK-South Korea free trade agreement

1st July 2019 Dr Minako Morita-Jaeger, International Trade Policy Consultant and Fellow, UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. The British and South Korean governments settled on an agreement in principle on ‘trade continuity’ on 10 June. Although there is no official information on its content or duration, Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State International Trade, tweeted that it would be a base for an ‘ambitious future free trade agreement (FTA)’ when the UK leaves the EU. If so, what would be possible options for such an FTA? And how realistic are these ambitions? […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-07-01T08:52:59+01:001 July 2019|UK - Non EU|0 Comments

About Nick Phipps

Economic realities of Brexit for firms and people in Northern Ireland

Johnson’s Brexit proposal is riddled with problems

Free ports—preparing to trade post-Brexit

UK food safety Statutory Instruments: A problem for US-UK negotiations?

Mimicking President Trump? – Trade and Politics in Japan’s Recent Export Measure

Johnson’s alternative to the backstop would be just as ‘undemocratic’

A look at new UK pesticides regulation: Part 2

Hiccups that make us reel

‘No deal’ means ‘no deal’

Ambition and reality: a UK-South Korea free trade agreement

Partners