The EU have now given their draft response to the Article 50 notice. The official text is HERE. What have we learned? They are not going to negotiate a trade deal until "sufficient" progress has been made on the withdrawal agreement. I assume this means until we've agreed to pay the £50 billion or whatever the total is.
There will be no cherry picking - this is made explicit and no sector by sector approach. Nissan look out! If negotiations extend beyond two years or we agree any transitional arrangements we will have to abide by all the single market rules including the ECJ.
Any free trade agreement must ensure a level playing field so no state aid, safeguards against any unfair competitive advantage through fiscal, social or environmental dumping. So we won't be able to have a low tax, Singapore style economy - if we want a free trade deal that is.
And Gibraltar was a surprise. No agreement can apply to Gibraltar without Spain's agreement and that might be a big problem for us and for Gibraltar. It looks like there will be an almighty row brewing in the Conservative party over this and the Brexit bill. The Telegraph is already talking about it being an outrage and MPs saying we won't be bullied. Some experts are surprised Gibraltar was not covered by the PM's Article 50 letter.
They were warned about this before the vote but it was all "scaremongering" wasn't it?
They were warned about this before the vote but it was all "scaremongering" wasn't it?
