There is no cliff edge. We can trade with the rest of the EU as we trade today with the rest of the world under the WTO umbrella we share with the EU. A deal to provide tariff free trade after we left would be better but it is not essential and cannot be guaranteed.
Brexit voters voted to take back control. That included taking back control of our money, our laws and our borders. Any Agreement that entails continued payments to the EU, continued control from the ECJ, and continued surveillance of our entire law code does not fulfil the instruction of UK voters to leave.
Let’s just look at the pluses from leaving without a deal.
We can start to spend the £12 bn a year we will save, on our priorities.
We can remove VAT from items we do not want to charge it on but have to.
We can sign trade deals with the many countries in the rest of the world that would like freer trade with us.
We can set a regulatory framework with high standards for our banks and financial services which does most to attract global business to the UK
We can pass the laws we want on everything from animal welfare to energy to transport to meet our own needs and high standards
The new Project Fear concentrates on saying the food basket will get dearer with tariffs against continental foods. We will be able to give the tariffs we collect back to our consumers as tax cuts so they will not be worse off. We will also be able to buy more from UK farmers and non EU farmers at cheaper prices than EU tariffed product. We could remove all tariffs from items we cannot produce in our climate.
They also say we will not have functioning borders for EU trade if we go the WTO route. Of course we will, and there is time enough to put them in place by 2017.
The UK must stop negotiating with itself. It is not a petitioner in a weak position. We can just leave.
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