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Our UK–Turkey partnership is cleared for take-off 🇬🇧🇹🇷 Turkish Airlines’ growth could deliver up to £6bn in UK exports, powered by stronger links and closer collaboration 🤝
The truth is I have some empathy with your position. I am fully aware of the great benefits of the Single Market & a customs union (the latter is especially useful for UK SMEs) ..but I also see the political sense of having a more independent trade policy. It is for this reason that I was many years ago brought around to the best possible Brexit compromise going forward of being "more like Norway or Switzerland" & - ironicaly - rejoining @EFTA4UK ...& ("Norway") EEA or ("Switzerland") reciprocating FoM with the EEA30, but having our own tariff schedule, a la the EFTA members, to negotiate independently (or together with fellow EFTA members) with. The TCA would permit this within in. I also long ago said UK should join PEM to mitigate some of the RoO issues as a result of no longer being part of the/any customs union with the EU27. I do now often play the devil's advocate in 'debating' with Brexiters who often retort that the EU should have remained a "Common Market"..they then have no answer when cornered with "so what then is your objection to EFTA/EEA"? (which is indeed what the leading Brexiters were inferring during the 2016 campaign, until it became an "immigration" issue. I will never forget Hannan being interviewed by Evan Davis the night of the 2016 result and squirming over FoM. He, like all the others, then moved to rejecting the "Norway or Switzerland" option in their desperation to Leave the EU at any cost. The ironic tragedy for these idiots is that they have now made it *more* likely the UK will rejoin the EU.. If they had continued to promote the "Norway or Switzerland" option, Brexit would be long behind us. This move might have also even persuaded non Euro countries like Denmark, Sweden, Poland to join us in EFTA. The "outer Concentric Circles" of varying levels of desired integration that Macron often suggests... allowing those that want "ever greater political integration" to march on faster than the more reticent EU members. All too late now I think. It is just a matter of time before the UK rejoins the EU, alongside Iceland & Norway. A pity. But being an EU member is better than the desperate (EU's or US's bitch; just a matter of how much to each) position the UK is now in. theguardian.com/politics/video…
