Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and ex-business secretary, said Schäuble’s comments “finally knocks on the head the leave campaign’s claim that we can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of the single market”. “We cannot leave the club and continue to use its facilities,” the Labour peer said. “Being outside the single market wold be a hammer blow to the UK economy. Our future trade [would] be hit and our manufacturing sector, which relies on the single market’s free movement of goods and people, [would] be at risk. This is the cold reality of Brexit that the British people must face. If we leave we lose the economic gains of being the world’s largest free-trade zone, putting jobs and livelihoods at risk.” Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said of Schäuble’s comments: “To quote Mandy Rice-Davis, he would say that, wouldn’t he? … What I call the realpolitik underneath the surface is that they don’t want to get into spats. Of course they don’t. We’re a friend, we cooperate in Nato, the G8 and G20. Mr Schauble’s bound to say what he said. Come on. Don’t tell me that Mr Osborne hasn’t been on that line to him almost permanently for the last few weeks …“You’ll probably get a load of these statements. Every finance minister in Europe is going to line up. They’ve probably got them every day between now and the referendum.”
The leave campaign has said it does not want to be in the single market, because it would not want the UK to have free movement. But its leading advocates, including Boris Johnson and Gove, dismiss the idea that Germany or other EU countries would impose trade tariffs given they sell the UK more in manufactured goods than they buy.
No comments:
Post a Comment