I’ve been watching with interest to see whether the British Government would try and weasel its way out of a proper Brexit, and to my surprise, it seems they’ll be honoring the results of the vote and completely exiting from all aspects of the EU, including the migration zone and the economic zone.

LONDON — Theresa May just confirmed that Britain will be leaving the single market as part of its withdrawal from the European Union.

The prime minister told an audience of foreign diplomats and ambassadors that she will terminate Britain’s membership of the free-trade area in order to have full control over immigration from the EU.

This was also confirmed by Chancellor Phillip Hammond, who told the House of Commons on Tuesday morning that Britain will no longer be in the single market once Brexit is finalised.

May assured her European counterparts that Britain will remain a “best friend” to the continent but added that she will not seek a Brexit deal that leaves the country “half-in, half out” of the European Union.

Speaking at Lancaster House, Westminster this morning, the Conservative Party leader also confirmed that Britain will be breaking away from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), meaning EU law will no longer apply once Brexit is formally completed.

The prime minister also confirmed that both houses of parliament will get a final vote on the deal that her government reaches with the EU before it is put into effect.

This is simply excellent news.

And it makes sense, after all, the doom-sayers who predicted all kinds of calamities if Brexit happened have been almost 100% wrong. A BBC analysis of the impact of the Brexit vote has found that some things are better, some things are worse, and there’s no catastrophe to be seen, anywhere.

Many economists prior to the referendum had been predicting an immediate and significant impact on the UK economy and consumer confidence should the country vote to leave the EU. But so far these predictions have not come to pass.

Latest figures show the economy grew by 0.6% between July and September, faster than previous estimates.

Read the article to see the impact of Brexit in detail.

Predictably the media and ‘elite’ sentiment had been that a ‘hard Brexit’ would cause another huge drop in the British Pound, but actually the opposite happened, with a mild bounce in the value of the Pound as the markets viewed the ‘clean Brexit’ in a favorable light:

Sterling saw its biggest daily gains since at least 1998 on Tuesday as Prime Minister Theresa May promised a parliamentary vote on Britain’s deal to leave the EU and sought to draw a line under discussion of a “hard” or “soft” Brexit.

The pound, already up more than 1 per cent as May began a keenly-awaited speech that had been extensively leaked to media, surged 2.9 per cent… in the hour that followed.

There remain two great risks. The first is that any ‘deal’ will go before Parliament, which is as it should be, however it’s likely to lead to a great deal of horse-trading and a large risk of compromises being made that are more about saving face for the ‘Remainers’ and less about what’s actually good for the UK. The second, although in my view the greater risk, is that the petulant EU will vent its frustrations by not negotiating with the UK in good faith for future trade deals. The EUs leverage will be limited, however, by the fact that the US is keen to get trade deals underway ASAP:

Donald Trump will offer the U.K. a quick and fair trade deal, the president-elect said in an interview with The Times newspaper published Sunday.

“We’re going to work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he planned to meet Prime Minister Theresa May soon after he gets into the White House.

The U.K. government won’t be able to sign any new bilateral trade deals until it has withdrawn from the European Union but it is free to scope out possible agreements before then. Mrs. May has said she plans to trigger the formal two-year process for leaving the EU by the end of March.

Mr. Trump, who has business interests in Britain, said he thought “Brexit is going to end up being a great thing” and welcomed the depreciation of the pound as helping to boost the attractiveness of British products abroad.

And that trade deal will more than offset whatever the EU do. And the EU should heed carefully Theresa May’s repetition of Philip Hammond’s warning that the UK may become a ‘low tax regime’ if the EU pushes too hard on its terms. Mr Hammond’s interview with a hostile German journalist was simply outstanding. An excerpt:

Welt am Sonntag [Interviewer]: The impression on the European continent is also that your government sees the future business model of the U.K. as being the tax haven of Europe. The government wants to introduce the lowest corporate tax rate among all industrialized countries.

Hammond: We are now objectively a European-style economy. We are on the U.S. end of the European spectrum, but we do have an open-market economy with a social model that is recognisably the European social model that is recognisably in the mainstream of European norms, not U.S. norms. And most of us who had voted Remain would like the U.K. to remain a recognisably European-style economy with European-style taxation systems, European-style regulation systems etcetera. I personally hope we will be able to remain in the mainstream of European economic and social thinking. But if we are forced to be something different, then we will have to become something different.

Welt am Sonntag: We don’t understand: Who or what would force you?

Hammond: Economic circumstances. If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term. In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say, too bad, we’ve been wounded. We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged.

Welt am Sonntag: In Britain’s future relationship with the EU, you want to stick to the free movement of goods and services but restrict the free movement of people. That’s cherry-picking, isn’t it?

Hammond: We aim for a new arrangement on a reciprocal basis. I think Mercedes-Benz, and BMW and Volkswagen would also like to sell their cars in the U.K. market without paying tariffs. I don’t call that cherry-picking. Is it cherry-picking when South Korea does a trade deal with the European Union, is it cherry-picking when Canada does a trade deal with the European Union? We should be able to reach an arrangement to allow, on a reciprocal basis, access to each other’s markets without the political integration that membership of the EU has come to imply.

A soft threat not to push too hard, or the UK will do what it must, including becoming a Tax Haven. That, of course, is supposed to be an insult, but actually becoming a Tax Haven can be a wonderful way to increase prosperity! In my opinion, and as unlikely as it is, the UK becoming a Tax Haven would be one of the most brilliantly awesome outcomes imaginable.

But enough fantasizing, back in the real world, in addition to economic and cultural benefits to a Brexit there’s also the fringe benefits. Of these, I think the most notable is that the UK will no longer be answerable to the European Court of Justice (doesn’t that sound like something out of a B Grade dystopian sci-fi film?). The ECJ has a long history of frowning on any attempts to push back against European over-reach.

High profile rulings included the court’s decision in 1981 to outlaw reductions in duty on beer. As a result Chancellor Nigel Lawson was forced to add 2p to a pint of beer in his 1984 Budget.

In 1986, the European Court of Justice nullified the UK’s right to opt out of the Social Chapter, a charter of social rights including a directive on working hours.

In 1998, the court refused to strike down a global ban on on the export of British beef following the mad cow disease outbreak.

And last year, Luxembourg judges outlaws the UK’s reduced VAT rate on “energy saving materials” designed to cut the cost of home insulation.

It’s all upside for the UK as far as I can see, and so far the markets have agreed with me, with a lower value for the British Pound being one of the only remaining negative impacts from the vote… and even then it’s only a negative for some. For others a lower pound is a life-saver, leading (slowly) to increased exports of British goods, and (more quickly) to an increase in tourism.

I’m just hoping that in the next few years we can put together an ANZCANUKUS free trade and freedom of movement treaty, allowing more freedom loving (I use the expression in relative terms, clearly we have our anti-freedom issues!) countries to unite in prosperity, and allowing the EU and other command-and-control style economies to suffer on their own.

Follow Topher:
Website: topherfield.net
Facebook: Facebook.com/topherfield
Instagram: @topherfield
Twitter: @topherfield
Youtube: Youtube.com/topherfield
Subscribestar: Subscribestar.com/topherfield