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  • In a grand democratic exercise, the British people have decided to leave the EU

  • Now, they're looking hard for the exit

  • While a lot of people know they are against the EU, fewer know exactly what they want instead

  • So let us take you around the post-Brexit showroom, where all the available models for new economic relations are on display

  • They all have different designs, so we can find the one that suits your priorities best

  • Whether that's to limit European immigration, be rid of Europeans laws, or remain a great trading nation

  • choice number one is to go it alone

  • cutting loose from a sinking continent and setting out on a great global adventure

  • Well, what is more boringly called the WTO, or World Trade Organization model

  • If Britain makes a clean break with the EU, it can keep the foreigners out, and it can ignore foreigners when making its laws

  • Unfortunately, it can also forget about a lot of the lucrative trade it's currently doing

  • Going it alone means to trade on the lowest common multiple of market access:

  • the WTO rules that almost every country in the world accepts

  • The WTO model is much worse for trade than the EU single market

  • As EU members, Britons have been able to buy and sell to other Europeans just as if they were in Britain

  • No tariffs, no discrimination, and exactly the same standards and regulations across the continent

  • Cutting loose means losing those benefits

  • So this choice is not so much the glory of the wide open seas

  • It's more lost at sea

  • If that doesn't appeal, how about choice number two? The Canada Model

  • Canada has struck a free trade deal with the EU

  • and the UK could try to do the same

  • It improves marginally on the WTO model, but it only covers goods, things you can load on ships and trucks

  • while the UK's greatest export advantages lie in services, such as finance and law

  • So what if you want to keep trading services unimpeded?

  • Then you might like choice number three

  • Ever heard of europeiske økonomiske samarbeidsområdet? Oh yes, you have

  • That's Norwegian for the European Economic Area, or EEA, which everyone calls the Norway model.

  • There's a lot to like about the Norway model

  • The EEA agreement lets Norway trade most goods and services freely inside the single market without being part of the EU

  • It can even strike its own trade deals with other countries

  • But then there was that thing about taking back control

  • And Norway has accepted wholesale the free movement of workers and the EU single market rules

  • So has Iceland, another EEA member

  • You could call it the Iceland model, if you prefer

  • Maybe that would do something for the football, but it won't keep immigrants out

  • By now you might be thinking that we're looking at ever more absurdly small countries for the UK to model itself on

  • Well, wait till you see this

  • Some unscrupulous dealers will tell you they can get you a special bespoke version of the EEA

  • This is choice number four: EEA+, or the Liechtenstein model

  • Liechtenstein is in the single market through the EEA

  • It's allowed some limits on freedom of movement

  • But Liechtenstein is 25 kilometers long, and has 37, 000 people

  • You won't get this model in a size that fits Britain

  • And even if you did, it would still require full compliance with the laws governing the single market

  • but without any say in what they are

  • So I'm afraid there is no model that takes all the boxes

  • If you avoid immigration, or laws not made at home, you lose out on trade

  • so you have to choose which priority to give up

  • If you could accept free movement, we do actually have a model that gives full single market access

  • and equal power of the rules

  • In fact, choice number five has been our bestselling model for years

  • It's called EU membership

  • But then that's the model you've just come to trade in

In a grand democratic exercise, the British people have decided to leave the EU

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