Name one thing I've made up about the EEA. And no, it doesn't need extensive renegotiation. That is the point of using it. Exceptions are managed by way of the system of country specific annexes. As to ratification, There will still need to be a transition deal and that will have to be unanimous so that's an obstacle we face any which way. Whatever you think of that option though, there is zero credibility to the WTO option.
http://peterjnorth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-con...

It's the typical toryboy tactic of throwing up a smokescreen of technobabble and hoping it sticks. Realignment of our WTO membership is something that would have to be done in any instance and for the most part can be done unilaterally - but this does not in any way address what happens to the UK is we drop out without a deal. It's all based on assertions and vague assumptions. Read it again carefully and you'll see the sleight of hand.

All of this pertains to the very narrow area of trade in goods and says nothing of the three hundred or so other areas of cooperation - all of which stop dead. There are no defaults that compel the EU to make any special concessions. If you walk out without a deal you have no formal relations and you have to set about negotiating remedial fixes until a permanent solution can be found. That by definition is a cliff edge. Wallace is either monumentally thick or deeply dishonest. I suspect both.

You're just making this stuff up now. Thanks for the laughs this week though. A cavalcade of ignorance.

Again you destroy your own argument. You say "The solution is to come to an agreement over cumulation, ie over how much added value is done at what stage of a product, and taking into account things like labour value, fuel, plant costs, overheads, and R&D costs."

You are talking about a do deal scenario where we have walked out of talks. There is then no possibility of coming to an agreement - and the third country defaults apply - and we would then have to petition the EU over time to address this issue. It is unable to make unilateral concessions for third countries outside of a customs union agreement - so yes, there very much is a cliff edge. And yet again you focus on trade in goods and tariffs, entirely oblivious to the three hundred or so areas of cooperation. You are not even close to understanding the issues.

You say "The US trades with the EU under WTO terms, but that does not mean that the US has no agreements with the EU."

In other words, the US does not trade with the EU exclusively under WTO terms. You are talking about a no deal scenario and then point to MRAs. That would have to be negotiated. So there is in fact a cliff edge - a no deal scenario where EU treaties cease to apply until new agreement can be negotiated. And if you knew a solitary thing about trade you would know how limited an MRA is contrasted with an FTA. How can you have come this far and still know so little?

You say a WTO settlement "based on a mass of smaller deals" would be sufficient. Except that a no deal scenario is a termination of EU membership - ie termination of all our arrangements with the EU. That is the WTO option. To suggest there is a WTO option with added extras is by definition not a "no deal" scenario. There is nothing whatsoever in the WTO rule book that compels the EU to give any special concessions to a third country with no arrangements. They exist only in Lee Rotherham's imagination. Meanwhile you obsess about tariffs and trade in goods while ignoring the three hundred or so areas of deep cooperation. You lot don't have a single clue between you.

"Also staying in the EEA means that all UK businesses will be under EU regulation"

Tradition is that if you're going to critique something, you should first read it.

Vote Leave messed it up big time. In the end the remain campaign (the government) lost the vote by way of being aloof, condescending and insulting. They used the entire weight of the establishment to skew the vote with a daily barrage of warnings bordering on threats. In the end there was no real answer the electorate could have given than FO. We got lucky. If anything the entire leave effort was inconsequential and didn't make much of a splash.

Ukip was mostly absent, Grassroots Out was a joke (preaching to the converted), Leave.EU was an outright embarrassment and Vote Leave was contemptible. Everybody in the country knew the £350m bull wasn't true and paid little attention to the official campaigns. That's going to have blowback for us too.

In the end what won it was the far reaching conversations between individuals on social media - none of whom used official campaign material in support of their arguments because it was bogus and crap.

That failure stays with us even now. Because they all ran such a useless campaign, there isn't a post-referendum movement to fend of threats to the Brexit process or make demands of the government. The whole leave effort blew it and probably cost us a larger majority. Now the adults have to clear up their mess and we probably won't get the Brexit we wanted. Not least due to the lack of a plan.

What won the referendum was a change of public mood and Vote Leave cannot take credit for that. They did nothing to engineer it. Most thought the hyperventilation about immigration and Turkish accession was out of order. It just came down to which side was the least hated. If you think Vote Leave can take credit for this win then you haven't really understood why we won.

Ghastly Toryboy spiv thinks ghastly Toryboy spivs should run the Brexit referendum campaign. I'm shocked!

Yeah, it also shouldn't be run by a "wait and see" Toryboy spiv hoping to make a fast buck who has no history of winning any seriously contested referendums.