Customs Union

Brexit: hard truths and hard choices

19 June 2017 Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. It’s now 12 months since the referendum decision, 3 months since the Article 50 notification, and only 21 months until the date on which the UK is due to exit the EU. Brexit negotiations start today, but most politicians have still not progressed beyond the stage of wishful thinking. There are ambiguities about the objectives of both the large political parties but each seems to want some kind of free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU after Brexit, often described by a phrase like ‘tariff-free access to the single market’. Behind such inherently confused terminology lies an apparent wish to have a ‘deep’ FTA; that is to say, a UK-EU FTA which has no tariffs and sufficient regulatory convergence between the UK and the EU that many of the non-tariff advantages of the single market are retained. Here’s the first hard truth: a deep UK-EU FTA cannot be negotiated in 21 months. Even much weaker agreements take longer, especially if the political and technical ground has not been prepared in advance, so it’s not [...]

By Nick Phipps|2017-06-19T12:11:42+01:0019 June 2017|UK- EU|6 Comments

Disentangling Brexit trade politics and policies

12 June 2017, L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of UKTPO. Suddenly everyone is talking again about the UK’s new trading relationship with the rest of the EU. Given the structure of the new Parliament, any party’s views may turn out to be pivotal. This blog is partly about what the parties say and partly about making conversation between them fruitful by clarifying the language. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-06-12T17:17:47+01:0012 June 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|3 Comments

Animal Welfare and Post-Brexit Trade: can you have your cake made with free range eggs and eat it?

12 June 2017 Guest blog by Iyan I.H. Offor, Trade & Animal Welfare Project Officer at Eurogroup for Animals and David Bowles, Assistant Director, Public Affairs, RSPCA. The Conservative Government has been quick to highlight the potential benefits and quick wins for animal welfare made possible by new UK trade competencies post-Brexit. However, experience with the reality of trade negotiations is making some animal welfare organisations more sceptical. The UK has some of the highest standards in the world enacted under a legislative model. This is in contrast to the approach of the US and Canada, for example, which place reliance upon voluntary industry standards. Diverging welfare standards can result in increased imports of low-welfare products for two reasons. First, lower animal welfare standards are invariably linked to cheaper production which out-factors transport costs. Second, there are no effective mandatory product labelling mechanisms for animal welfare, except for shell eggs. Thus, although consumers express willingness to buy higher welfare products and to pay a premium for such products, they inadvertently purchase low welfare meat and dairy because the market does not operate transparently. This puts the livelihoods of British farmers who comply with animal welfare production requirements at risk. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-06-12T10:16:46+01:0012 June 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|2 Comments

Will Brexit harm UK and global wine markets?

30 May 2017 The UK has accounted for a major share of the world’s wine imports for centuries, and wine currently accounts for more than one-third of UK alcohol consumption. Its withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) will therefore affect not only UK wine consumers, producers, traders, distributors and retailers but also suppliers of those imports. Based on a model of the world’s wine markets, in their Briefing Paper ‘Will Brexit harm UK and global wine markets?’ Professor Anderson and Glyn Wittwer determine the impacts of various alternative Brexit scenarios through to 2025, involving adjustments to UK and EU27 bilateral tariffs on wine imports and any changes to UK income growth and the value of the pound over the period of adjustment. Their research indicates that for wine markets, the impact of the UK leaving the Customs Union is likely to come not only from tariff changes but also from slowed growth of UK incomes and devaluation of the pound. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-05-30T15:52:42+01:0030 May 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

What do the General Election Manifestos say about International Trade? UKIP

26 May 2017 Compiled by Fellows of the UKTPO Brexit will leave many areas of UK policy open to change. International trade policy is among the most important of these for UK prosperity and also among the most immediate because the status quo cannot simply be extended. This is the fifth in a series of blogs reporting what the major political parties say about trade policy in their 2017 manifestos, as they become available. The UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) has set out a series of issues that it believes should be considered in any election manifesto that might form the basis of the UK’s future trade policy. The table below checks whether or not the UKIP Manifesto mentions these important elements explicitly or implicitly. Following that we offer a brief commentary on the treatment of trade policy in the manifesto. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-05-26T16:12:22+01:0026 May 2017|UK- EU|0 Comments

What do the General Election Manifestos say about International Trade? The Conservatives

19 May 2017 Compiled by Fellows of UKTPO Brexit will leave many areas of UK policy open to change. International trade policy is among the most important of these for UK prosperity and also among the most immediate because the status quo cannot simply be extended. This is the third in a series of blogs reporting what the major political parties say about trade policy in their 2017 manifestos, as they become available. The UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) has set out a series of issues that it believes should be considered in any election manifesto that might form the basis of the UK’s future trade policy. The table below checks whether or not the Conservative Manifesto mentions these important elements explicitly or implicitly. Following that we offer a brief commentary on the treatment of trade policy in the manifesto. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-05-19T14:05:05+01:0019 May 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

What do the General Election Manifestos say about International Trade? The Liberal Democrats

18 May 2017 Compiled by Fellows of UKTPO Brexit will leave many areas of UK policy open to change. International trade policy is among the most important of these for UK prosperity and also among the most immediate because the status quo cannot simply be extended. This is the second in a series of blogs reporting what the major political parties say about trade policy in their 2017 manifestos, as they become available. The UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) has set out a series of issues that it believes should be considered in any election manifesto that might form the basis of the UK’s future trade policy. The table below checks whether or not the Liberal Democrats’ Manifesto mentions these important elements explicitly or implicitly. Following that we offer a brief commentary on the treatment of trade policy in the manifesto. The central plank of the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto is remaining in the single market and the customs union. This implies no change to current trade policies and hence little need to discuss them in the manifesto. Thus their coverage of trade policy is rather sparse. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-05-18T11:27:38+01:0018 May 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

Reaction to PM Theresa May’s Brexit speech

17 January 2017 Dr Peter Holmes (Reader in Economics and member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex), reacts to Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech on negotiating objectives for exiting the EU. The speech essentially confirms what we knew already, that sticking to the government’s red lines on the European Court of Justice and free movement would make joining the European Economic Area impossible and so we must leave the single market. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-01-17T16:50:56+00:0017 January 2017|UK- EU|0 Comments

Leaving the EU Customs Union: What is the issue?

29 July 2016 Professor L. Alan Winters, Professor Jim Rollo and Dr Peter Holmes are all members of UKTPO Liam Fox MP, the President of the Board of Trade, is reported as saying that the UK should leave the EU Customs Union so as to give it the freedom to negotiate Free Trade Areas (FTAs) with other countries. This would be an unexceptionable step after full Brexit but a provocative, and very probably costly, one before Brexit. […]

By Nick Phipps|2016-07-29T15:59:09+01:0029 July 2016|UK- EU|0 Comments

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