Brexit Question..........

donalh087

This may appear a really stupid question but I can't find a definitive answer anywhere.

If there is a hard Brexit and the UK leaves, can Ireland continue to sell goods to the UK unrestricted?

Xterminator

if UK goes hard brexit then WTO rules apply.

read here for more info on what that looks like from a british perspective.

http://theconversation.com/no-deal-seven-reasons-why-a-wto-only-brexit-would-be-bad-for-britain-102009

donalh087

I understand what it looks like from the UK perspective. The question I asked was different. Let me be clearer. If Britain is ‘starving’, will they apply WTO tariffs to Irish cheese? Or will we continue to sell unrestricted? Can the EU stop us?

NIMAN

I have wondered who actually enforces the WTO rules?

I mean, could the EU actually say, in the event of a hard Brexit, "sure we'll just forget about that 11% tariff on food that should be added on now, we'll apply a 0.01% tariff instead"?

Who can stop them doing that?

donalh087

You can only apply them to imports so it is up your own customs to apply them.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

donalh087 wrote: »

I understand what it looks like from the UK perspective. The question I asked was different. Let me be clearer. If Britain is ‘starving’, will they apply WTO tariffs to Irish cheese? Or will we continue to sell unrestricted? Can the EU stop us?

That's up to the UK. They apply the import tariffs.

sameoldname

donalh087 wrote: »

I understand what it looks like from the UK perspective. The question I asked was different. Let me be clearer. If Britain is ‘starving’, will they apply WTO tariffs to Irish cheese? Or will we continue to sell unrestricted? Can the EU stop us?

There's no way of knowing what the UK government will do in the situation that there are food shortages.

However, supposing they do drop all tariffs on cheese for example. The WTO's Most-Favoured Nation clause applies, which means that if they drop tariffs on one nation, they have to drop them for everyone. That means that Irish cheese producers will be in competition with every cheese producer world-wide willing to sell into the British market. Unless they have a trade deal of course in which case they could have a reduced tariff with whomever they have a deal with, while keeping up the tariffs on anyone else, but as trade deals take on average about 7 years to negotiate we'll assume they won't have one with any nation any time soon.

As for if the EU could stop us, external trade for all EU members is handled by the EU directly. So if the question is: "Can Ireland trade tariff free with the UK but not include the rest of the EU?" Then the answer is no. However, as stated above, without a trade deal the UK has to offer the same tariffs to everyone unless they want to be in breach of WTO rules.

Short answer: If they leave with no deal, assume there will be full tariffs on everything.

L1011

NIMAN wrote: »

I have wondered who actually enforces the WTO rules?

I mean, could the EU actually say, in the event of a hard Brexit, "sure we'll just forget about that 11% tariff on food that should be added on now, we'll apply a 0.01% tariff instead"?

Who can stop them doing that?

Most Favoured Nation concept prevents that, you would end up with a trade war very quickly.





Irish goods being sold to the UK is not a consumer issue for the scope of this forum in the slightest, btw.

donalh087

L1011 wrote: »

Irish goods being sold to the UK is not a consumer issue for the scope of this forum in the slightest, btw.

Apologies for that - I followed the branches of the tree down and ran out of options :-)

donalh087

‘The Lake Isle Of Tariff-free’

I will arise and go now, and go to tariff free,
And a small Cabinet build there, of absolute waffle made:
No quotas will I have there, and jam from a money tree,
And live alone in a BBC loud glade.

4068ac1elhodqr

Is there a chance the EU will make a couple of exceptions? e.g.

i) Food - Allow the UK to import/export foodstuffs
ii) Cars - Allow the EU to export/import cars and vehicles to the UK

This would likely benefit both parties, everything else get's the tariff in the spirit of post-brexitious.

L1011

Ben Deafening Numerology wrote: »

Is there a chance the EU will make a couple of exceptions? e.g.

i) Food - Allow the UK to import/export foodstuffs
ii) Cars - Allow the EU to export/import cars and vehicles to the UK

This would likely benefit both parties, everything else get's the tariff in the spirit of post-brexitious.

UK is responsible for setting its import tarriffs and on "WTO Terms" as some seem to want, they can't set different tariffs for different countries. No so.

Anyway, Politics forum has the proper thread for this. Closing this one.