Archive link for those of us in the customs union.
Uh oh 😳. It’s Wes Streeting whom we all hate because of NHS. But he wants us to rejoin the Custom’s Union. Fuck! How do we choose? Will it be a path to rejoining or will it be in fighting and dogma? 🫠😜.
A customs union (as opposed to a free trade area) would require us to allow the EU to control what external tariffs we set, that would effectively make Chinese and American goods a lot more expensive.
And given how much China and the US are our friends, that would just be terrible.
Oh no, we’d buy more stuff more Europe, how terrible. Then it’ll have to get shipped locally: the terror!!!
And then European businesses and consumers might start buying from the UK again! That will not stand!!
Spiking the cost of living is generally a bad thing 🤓
You’re happy to increase the price of pretty much everything, so a few rich people can buy overpriced German cars slightly cheaper?
More than half of all U.K. imports come from the EU. That’s AFTER Brexit, so lower compared to what it was before.
Only 13% of UK imports come from the US. 7% from China. Even combined it’s less than half of EU imports.
You’ve got your numbers flipped around mate.
Europe isn’t just luxury marques. It has a huge market of everyday goods, including food made there, which meets the same standards the UK hasn’t yet abandoned and is close enough to be more cost-effective than shipping over the oceans. US and Chinese manufactured goods may go up slightly (but not by much; the UK would have the same deal as the EU), but that would be offset by access to the European market (not to mention the UK being able to export to the EU with a lot less hassle; the Europeans do buy a lot of British goods, and would buy more if they became more competitive).
Plus, we’ve already played this game. Even adjusting for everything, things were cheaper before we left the EU.
The only arguments against rejoining a customs union with the EU are ideological, because we’ve hard proof that being outside the customs union is less beneficial than being within it.
There are many affordable goods that can be bought from countries that aren’t the US or China. I actually think I would rather buy things that aren’t from the US or China. Both of those countries don’t seem to like Europe or the UK very much.
I support a FTA, possibly by re-joining the EFTA.
Good.