USA, Canada, New Zealand. They say Chequers is dead in the water too.

Talking of countries that are not in the EU that have successful trade deals with the EU but are not subservient to EU law, the US Ambassador to London Woody Johnson has said that a UK-US Free Trade Agreement is now “up in the air” because of the White Paper. 

New Zealand’s former High Commissioner to the UK Sir Lockwood Smith has said that if we follow the White Paper, we “can forget global Britain”. 

On not making our own rules, a Canadian former ambassador to the WTO has stated: ‘either you have the freedom to strike trade deals and manage an independent trade and regulatory policy, or you don’t.’     

The letter does not acknowledge that there is a better alternative.   The UK could negotiate a free trade deal similar to that between the EU and Canada, but with the addition of special rules that would allow British financial firms to retain their automatic access to European markets. Such a deal has been labelled ‘Canada +++’. 

Leaving the EU on WTO terms would allow the UK to make its own laws, agree trade deals with the world outside the EU, and set our own course for a brighter future. It would also prevent undue retaliation from the EU.   

Despite the Prime Minister’s claims that ‘we would still be able to make a competitive offer to new trading partners’, the Chequers plan would actually deny the UK the freedom to do independent trade deals, because regulations need to be on the table in negotiations, and we would not have control over these.   

The White Paper deal is also unnecessary to avoid a ‘hard border’ for Northern Ireland. Both the UK and Republic of Ireland customs authorities have stated that the necessary technological solutions exist without one. Irish PM Leo Varadkar and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have both said that even in the event of no deal, there need be no hard border in Ireland. 

The White Paper would see Britain unrepresented in the EU’s law-making institutions but forced to abide by its rules. This means Britain would be governed, to a great extent, by someone other than the British people. So the White Paper is not what anyone would recognise as Brexit – but it is also completely unnecessary. Moving to WTO terms would be a perfectly normal relationship between the two sides.   

The 2017 Conservative manifesto bound the Conservative Party (and the Labour manifesto was also clearly binding to its party) to fully leave the European Union.   

This is not where we are now.