Sputnik spoke with Professor of economics at Cardiff University Patrick Minford to gain insight into the situation.
Sputnik: Would Britain’s economy be affected by not remaining in the single market?
Patrick Minford: It’s not about access to the single market; everybody’s got access to the single market, the point is whether you are in the single market, that’s what people are talking about here. If you’re in the single market, that is to say the EU, then you have to be regulated across your whole economy by the EU.
If you’re Russia or China you sell into the single market, and that’s what we’ll do after we leave the EU. We’ll, like them sell into the EU and satisfy product standards of the single market so we can sell to them.
It’s very simple really; hopefully we’ll also have a trade agreement which will give us zero tariffs. It will all be done under WTO rules, there’s really nothing anybody has to do to sell to the EU except satisfy product standards.
Patrick Minford: There’s a lot of hot air being talked about the Irish border and enormous amounts of angry remonstrations from all sorts of quarters, especially the Irish. The UK has said very clearly that technology can deal with the border with Ireland; there won’t be any hardness in the border because technology today means all borders are seamless.
All that’s happening here of course is that the Irish don’t want us to leave, so are making trouble and talking about the border and the Good Friday Agreement, all of which is complete nonsense.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.