Author Archives: John Hefford

John Hefford

No deal may be better than a bad one, but it’s still very bad

By John Hefford | Mon 8th May 2017 - 3:39 pm

In a recent blog on Prospect, Peter Lilley, the former Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, explained his support for Theresa May’s statement that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. Although a ‘bad deal’ would be more disastrous than no deal at all, the ‘no deal’ scenario should not be viewed through rose-tinted glasses. It is worryingly implied that a Conservative majority would already accepted that it will not be possible for the UK and the EU to come to an agreement in time, and have lost interest in serious negotiations.

The flaw in Peter Lilley’s argument is the belief that in a ‘no deal’ or ‘Hard Brexit’ scenario, that the UK will be able to export to the EU on WTO ‘most favoured nation’ terms.  This is improbable for the first argument that the UK is not currently a member of the World Trade Organisation, so there is no legal basis for an expectation to trade on any WTO terms; and for the second argument that it won’t be in the political interests of the EU to consider the UK a ‘most favoured nation’. Peter Lilley himself concedes that for the EU, “politics trumps economics”.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 20 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Roland
    @Jeff - I didn’t say resources were scarce, just that they are in short supply. So whilst there might be decades of fossil fuels in the ground, you may have n...
  • Paul R
    It might be better to spend the money on increased assistance to help people switch to EVs instead. Otherwise motorists will always be dependent on the next war...
  • Michael BG
    Nigel Jones, “When we debated FPC’s planned program last year, some said we should have included tax issues in that program” Indeed. I didn’t s...
  • Suzanne Fletcher
    Far too late for me to comment, but just skimmed through the replies and I agree with most. Most important is that as Caron says, it was announced where hundre...
  • Robyn Peel
    A key difference between the Liberal Democrats and other parties is that members go in their own right, not as representatives of their local party; we have att...