I confess I didn't realise that in 2014 The Institute for Economic Affairs ran a competition to award a 100,000 Euro prize for the best plan to guide the UK's exit from the EU (the word Brexit had yet to be invented). The judges include Lord Lawson and Roger Bootle of Capital Economics. Bootle himself had earlier won £250,000 as the Wolfson prize for setting out how countries could leave the single currency. Who knew?
The winner of the IEA prize rose without trace. He was Iain Mansfield, Director of the UK's trade and investment department in The Philippines. You can read his plan HERE. I understand his was the only plan of the six submitted to actually be released. The judges announced the winner without anyone else being able to judge for themselves if it really was the best. Anyway, Mr Mansfield won the money.
Looking at his "plan" now, with the benefit of hindsight one can see how ridiculous it was. His central idea was for the UK to rejoin EFTA but not the EEA. He seems to want a deal along the lines of Switzerland but without the free movement of people. Good luck with that one.
He also assumed we would have our own plan ready for the moment Article 50 was invoked and suggested we shouldn't try to negotiate an "early" exit! Some hope.
On free trade he says the UK is a WTO signatory in its own right and would smoothly take up membership once again. Well we know how that went. The USA, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina and other countries have objected to the way we and the EU want to divide meat quotas for a start. It's not as easy as he thought.
The UK should accept EU regulations in some areas (the government has already ruled out any ECJ involvement so this is out of the question anyway) but says we should not comply in other areas like the working time directive and restaurant hygiene requirements. I don't think we'll get a deal with the EU if we don't commit to similar labour laws and why we need our own restaurant hygiene rules is a mystery. He clearly wants to have dirtier cafes for some reason - we can already have cleaner ones if we want.
He also said we are signatories in our own right to the EU FTAs and could just carry on without any renegotiation. The government has itself now confirmed this isn't the case and they only apply to EU member states anyway, whether we signed them or not. And we are going to struggle to meet the rules on local manufacture as far as cars and South Korea are concerned because UK cars contain a lot of foreign (EU) parts. The problems mount.
He also says a number of other amazing things:
The UK should seek to establish a formal ‘EU out-group’ of European countries which are outside the EU but have close trading arrangements with it, including all non-EU members of EFTA and the EUCU. As befitting the diverse range of interests within this grouping, this would be a non-binding forum of independent nation states such as the OECD or the G8 rather than a supranational organisation such as the EU. Such a mechanism would allow this grouping to speak with a strengthened voice in discussions with the EU and reduce the possibility of decisions being taken to the disadvantage of its members.
In other words he wants to leave but still have a say in EU affairs! And he says:
"whilst it is in no-one’s rational economic interests to erect trade barriers, the EU could afford a trade war far better than the UK could"
Only the UK is talking about "erecting" trade barriers. The trade barriers are already there, but after Brexit we will be on the wrong side of them.
He list EU regulations he wants to get rid of - without considering what the EU might demand in return for a trade deal - but he talks of the "unnecessarily high EU standards" so under his plan we would expect low product, environmental and employment standards.
He is cherry picking all the way through. He wants looser financial regulation but access to the EU market and talks of the "UK’s attractiveness for FDI, and its value as a gateway to Europe, will remain strong". This is cloud cuckoo land.
He does concede some difficulties in accepting ECJ jurisdiction and admitted we would continue paying money to the EU to the end of the Multi Annual Financial Framework in 2020.
And he says the "fundamental assets of the country, its population, global connections, infrastructure and knowledge base mean that the long-term growth, balance of trade and economic outlook should remain strong". He looks youngish and I assume he doesn't remember how we declined from post war to 1973.
Finally, the economic prospects, according to Mr Mansfield varied between an increase in GDP of 1.1% to a decline in GDP of 2.6% with the most likely outcome a 0.1% increase although it isn't clear if this is permanent or just a one off. Note that we have already dropped from the top of the G8 growth league to the bottom and this has cut GDP by around 1% - and we haven't even started yet.
And remember this was the best plan.
