The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has claimed that the UK can leave the Single market and Customs Union and still enjoy frictionless trade with the EU.
Mr Hunt said that being pragmatic about aligning regulations with the remaining members of the EU would allow us to continue to trade.
Talking about the Prime Minister's recent Mansion House Speech where she said that the European Union should 'look beyond precedents and find a new balance', Jeremy Hunt said that it would be possible for the UK to enjoy frictionless trade with the EU, but at the same time taking back control of our own destiny by taking advantage of the 'big opportunities' and exciting possibilities' that Brexit offered.
Talking to the BBC Radio Four Today programme, Mr Hunt said:
'It's through having a pragmatic alignment of our regulations, as she said, that will be of substantially the same high standards as in European countries, but on a voluntary basis so that we will agree to make sure our regulations are of similar standards so that you can have that frictionless trade.
'But Parliament would always have the final say and if it wanted to change that and have less market access as a result, that is a trade-off that we would be empowered to make because the sovereignty would reside with Parliament.'
Theresa may had also dismissed claims by the EU that it would not allow the UK to 'cherry pick' the bits it liked from the EU as a basis for an agreement by pointing out that all negotiation at every level involved each side attempting to 'cherry pick'.
After all, just look at the EU side wanting to cherry pick a huge pay-out, which the UK is not legally obliged to pay as well as taking what they can of our defence capabilities on an 'unconditional support' basis. Not forgetting maintaining ECJ control over EU citizens living in the EU as well as controlling our future trade and foreign policy via memberships of the customs union and other related bodies.
And all this so that a handful of EU member states can continue to sell us far more than we sell into the EU!
The EU needs frictionless trade with the UK internal market as much as, if not more than, we need access into the EU27 internal market. Something none of us, especially our negotiators, should ever forget.
The questions we should be asking of the EU is, do you want frictionless trade into the UK market and how much is that worth to you?
