Influential Brexiteer, Tory MP Bernard Jenkin writing the Financial Times and declaring optimism on Brexit --
The EU has no case for requiring British companies to prove origin if the UK is still applying the EU tariff on all non-EU imports.
This style of breezy assertion is typical. But it reveals deep misunderstanding about how modern international trade works. By referring to companies needing to "prove origin," Jenkin seems to think all trade is like wine and cheese: origin is intrinsic to where the good was produced. But the actual terminology is rules of origin -- an extremely complex set of rules tailored to supply chains where most goods contain materials and processing from different countries.
Jenkin thinks that as long as Britain maintains the EU tariff, it is entitled to tariff-free access to the EU. But that would depend on the preferential rules of origin that the EU would be entitled to impose on any such agreement with Britain. Practical questions such as: would British exports to the EU be allowed to count EU content and processing along the chain as UK origin for the purposes of tariff-free access? Would content and processing from the EFTA or Mediterranean countries that follow the same rules of origin also count? Incidentally, those countries don't apply the EU tariff but do apply the same rules of origin on EU trade, contrary to Jenkin's view of how such trade works. All those issues and many others would have to be negotiated -- declaring that the EU "has no case" is simply irrelevant.
But these people (Ray Bassett is another example) can get platforms in prominent opinion pages with demonstrably incoherent arguments.
The EU has no case for requiring British companies to prove origin if the UK is still applying the EU tariff on all non-EU imports.
This style of breezy assertion is typical. But it reveals deep misunderstanding about how modern international trade works. By referring to companies needing to "prove origin," Jenkin seems to think all trade is like wine and cheese: origin is intrinsic to where the good was produced. But the actual terminology is rules of origin -- an extremely complex set of rules tailored to supply chains where most goods contain materials and processing from different countries.
Jenkin thinks that as long as Britain maintains the EU tariff, it is entitled to tariff-free access to the EU. But that would depend on the preferential rules of origin that the EU would be entitled to impose on any such agreement with Britain. Practical questions such as: would British exports to the EU be allowed to count EU content and processing along the chain as UK origin for the purposes of tariff-free access? Would content and processing from the EFTA or Mediterranean countries that follow the same rules of origin also count? Incidentally, those countries don't apply the EU tariff but do apply the same rules of origin on EU trade, contrary to Jenkin's view of how such trade works. All those issues and many others would have to be negotiated -- declaring that the EU "has no case" is simply irrelevant.
But these people (Ray Bassett is another example) can get platforms in prominent opinion pages with demonstrably incoherent arguments.
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