Sir, – Having listed all the objectives of Brexit, your distinguished contributor Alan Dukes suggests that "The UK should offer completely free, duty-free and quota-free access to its markets to the EU on condition of reciprocity. I believe that this is an offer that the EU could not logically refuse" ("Whitehall's Brexit advice to Theresa May", Opinion & Analysis, October 14th). He omits to mention that the EU regards the four freedoms as indivisible – you cannot have free movement of capital, goods and services without free movement of people.
He also presupposes that goods and services produced in the UK in the future will automatically be deemed to conform to EU regulations because the relevant UK regulations have not been changed from prior EU regulations.
However, this implies that the EU and UK will have signed a mutual recognition agreement whereby the EU and UK will recognise each other’s regulatory bodies as adequately enforcing those regulations.
Such mutual recognition agreements are typically included in trade deals which, again typically, take many years to negotiate, and which, in the case of the EU, have to be separately ratified by all EU member states.
Thus any member state, for example Spain, could veto such a trade deal if it isn’t happy over some other issue such as the status of Gibraltar.
The consequence is that, even with the best will in the world, no EU/UK trade deal may ever be signed. And without that, we are faced with the prospect of goods stuck in customs awaiting clearance, greatly hindering trade. This will affect the UK economy about 10 times as badly as the EU, as the UK exports 40 per cent of its exports to the EU, while only 4 per cent of EU exports are destined for the UK.
He then goes on to suggest that the UK could simply replicate all existing EU trade deals with third countries by substituting the letters UK for EU in the text of such agreements. This assumes that third-party countries would be happy to give the UK (a market of 60 million people) the same terms as they have conceded for access to the single market (of 500 million people).
Good luck with that.
Finally, Mr Dukes makes no mention of passporting rights for financial services, without which no UK-based banking institution can offer services within the EU. The failure to negotiate that would alone would scupper a large part of the UK economy.
Other than that, his advice (surely tongue-in-cheek?) is all fine and dandy. – Yours, etc,
FRANK SCHNITTGER,
Blessington, Co Wicklow.
A chara, – The peace process must be protected by both Dublin and London. The European Parliament will also have a vested interest in ensuring that it is not only supported but strengthened. Any attempt to return to the days of a hard Border would surely be weakening the peace process, and could result in the breakdown of the peace process. This would be disastrous for all the people of Ireland. Those who will wholeheartedly stand up for the peace process and respect the Remain vote in the north have the interests of all the people at heart. – Is mise,
Fr JOE McVEIGH,
Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.