Tory policy maven Stephen Booth writes about the breakdown of Swiss-EU negotiations toward a comprehensive treaty of cooperation. His obvious aim is to see in these a vision of what the UK may be able to achieve in similar negotiations. My two word summary of what he concludes is possible: not much.
The EU has demonstrated via its actions that the political bar for substantially closer UK-EU economic cooperation is likely to be a high one for any future UK government to pass. Now that Brexit is fact, few in the UK appear confident to make the political argument that the UK should submit to UK-EU arbitration arrangements involving the ECJ to remove some of the new trade barriers that have arisen.
Therefore, greater divergence with the EU is likely in the future, whether we like it or not. EU law will continue to change without the UK. The UK can seek to coordinate with Brussels but its agreement cannot be guaranteed. The UK should focus on exploiting the levers it can now control, be it using its own subsidy regime to encourage inward investment or to ensure the City is a leading non-EU financial centre.
He concludes the UK can achieve more with entities that lie outside the EU - Australia, New Zealand, India, and though he doesn’t mention it, the US.
