Hard Brexit, soft Border. Some trade implications of the intra-Irish border options.
7 December 2017
Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
How can the UK uphold its commitment to leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union while also preserving the invisible intra-Irish border? Leaving aside crucial questions of political feasibility, this post looks at some of the options and their trade and border implications. Notably, there are limits to ‘flexible and creative’ solutions that involve turning a blind eye to customs and regulatory checks solely on the intra-Irish border: trade rules leave little room for such ad hoc approaches. […]
With Brexit less than 500 days away, enshrining the Brexit date into law will not provide certainty that consumers and businesses really need.
16 November 207
Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the UKTPO.
The European Chief Negotiator for Brexit, Michel Barnier, has recently confirmed that the UK will cease to be a member of the EU at midnight (Brussels time) on 29 March 2019. This means that we are now less than 500 days and under 350 working days away from the Brexit date. More time has already passed since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016. […]
Will Brexit Raise the Cost of Living?
2 November 2017
Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the UKTPO.
As the United Kingdom is preparing to leave the European Union, Government policy is to seek a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. But Brexit talks have not moved onto the trade issues yet and even if the future trade relationship is taken up in December, this gives little time and offers no guarantee that an agreement will be reached and ratified before 29 March 2019, the Brexit date. The Government has recently recognised the possibility that talks might break down and started to outline a ‘no deal’ vision of the UK-EU trade.
Our analysis reveals that unemployed households, those with children, and pensioners will all fare off worse than average in the case of a ‘no deal’. A new paper, Will Brexit Raise the Cost of Living? by Stephen Clarke, Ilona Serwicka and L. Alan Winters, and published by the National Institute Economic Review, looks at the impact that imposing Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs on UK imports from the EU would have on the price of goods sold in the UK […]
The impact of Brexit on cross-channel trade and the practical challenges facing the UK economy post-Brexit
26 October 2017
Nicolo Tamberi is Research Assistant for the UKTPO and Charlotte Humma is the UKTPO’s business manager.
Leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union will require the implementation of new border controls between the UK and the EU that will surely increase transport time and therefore costs. However minimal they may be, these new procedures will negatively affect trade between the two parties.
According to a study by EY, Economic footprint of the Channel Tunnel fixed link, trade between Folkestone and Calais via the Eurotunnel was estimated to be £91.4 billion or 24.8% of trade with the EU in 2014. Goods transported through the Channel Tunnel are exported from and imported to every region of the UK.
Today, transporting things from one shore to the other requires minimal controls such as those that exist between Surrey and Somerset. Businesses on both sides of the channel increase their efficiency by integrating their supply chains and by relying on the prompt connection across the channel. So, what about Brexit? If one thing is clear in the impenetrable mist surrounding the future UK-EU relations, it is that exiting […]
Boeing – Bombardier and Brexit II
17 October 2017
Steve McGuire is Professor of Business and Public Policy and Head of the School of Business, Management and Economics at the University of Sussex. He is a Fellow of the UKTPO.
Bombardier has found an elegant solution to its trade problems with the United States: sell a controlling stake in the programme to a company with deeper pockets to defend itself – and with a US production base immune, by definition, from US tariffs. […]
No deal’ Brexit tariffs could mean millions of households facing price rises of over £500 a year
17 October 2017
Lower-income households would be disproportionately affected should the UK revert to WTO tariffs
Exiting the EU without a trade deal and reverting to WTO ‘most-favoured nation’ (MFN) tariffs with the EU would lead to significant price rises across a range of goods, with low-income households facing the biggest cost pressures. This is according to a new joint-report published by the Resolution Foundation and the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. […]
The ins and outs of the Single Market
11 October 2017
One of the most critical issues for the Brexit negotiations in relation to trade is whether the UK should remain in the EU Single Market. The Conservatives claim that the UK will no longer be members of its single market or its customs union by the end of a two-year transitional period, but at his party’s conference, Jeremy Corbyn said a Labour government would strike a deal with the EU that “guarantees unimpeded access to the single market” after Brexit.
We have produced a short, animated video that explains what the Single Market is, how it works and the ways it effects trade, and thereby the economy. This includes the role of the European Court of Justice. Ultimately, the video explains that there is a trade-off between making your laws independently and cooperating sufficiently to be a part of a bigger market and achieve higher incomes.
Republishing guidelines
The UK Trade Policy Observatory believes in the free flow of information and encourages readers to cite our materials, providing due acknowledgement. For online use, this should be a link to he original resource on the our website. We do not however, publish under a Creative Commons license. […]
Groundhog day: Is the Government White Paper on trade and Customs Bill a step forward?
11 October 2017
Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Director and Managing Director of InterAnalysis
Reading the Government’s White Paper on trade, and the Customs Bill on future customs arrangements, together with Monday’s statement from the Prime Minister seemed like a Groundhog day moment. In other words, this is somewhere we have been before – repeatedly. […]
State Aid is on the Agenda: Deal or No Deal
6 October 2017
Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Research Professor in Law at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of UKTPO. She is currently the Special Adviser to the House of Lords Internal Market Sub-Committee in respect of its inquiry into Brexit: competition. She is the author of The Regulation of the State in Competitive Markets (Hart Pub. 2007)
State aid issues are highly politicised. And for good reasons. Taxpayers’ money is being used in a selective manner, without any democratic input into its effective use. Competitors, at home and abroad, feel aggrieved that a firm is either obtaining an unfair advantage or being bailed out, where it cannot compete on the market. But State aid may be necessary to combat unusual situations, such as environmental disasters, or financial crises, or to buy time to rescue and restructure in order to save jobs and a local economy. It may be needed on an ongoing basis to provide public services. […]
Boeing, Bombardier and Brexit: what does a North American trade dispute say about Brexit?
27 September 2017
Steve McGuire is Professor of Business and Public Policy and Head of the School of Business, Management and Economics at the University of Sussex. He is a Fellow of the UKTPO.
As Bombardier is bombarded with a 220% tariff increase on exports to the US, the UK needs to wise up. There are two key points from the Boeing-Bombardier dispute that have implications for Brexit. First, leaving the European Union will not affect the sovereignty that national governments already have to dish out state aid for key industries. This will not change. Second, and this is the critical point, trade is bound up in broader political calculations. […]
