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@Carnyx

Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?

Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.

But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.

Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.

I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.

No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...

We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.

And of course the Three Counties Showground!

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.

The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.

The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.

In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".

We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).

We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.

It's history now but I think a middle way would have been best: join the Common Market as soon as we could - as we did - but use it to shape it more our way over 50 years so that a single market did not equal irrevocable FOM, so that the Euro was off the table, and so that the new Europe Union, whatever it was called, was co-terminus with a military alliance , perhaps called NATO.

I don't think any good options remain, only bad and worse ones. As to 'A Custom Union', Wes may fly a kite about it, and it sounds great. But I bet anything he will not begin to outline what is involved in having both a free trade area (which we have already) and a common external tariff with the EU.

The least worst option remains EEA/EFTA.

Morning all

There's lots of talk about "a customs union". As I understand it, a customs union means the two countries (or blocs) will trade freely with each other AND impose a common tariff (whatever that may be) on goods from non-member countries (well, that's what Wiki tells me).

Wiki also tells me there's a Free Trade Agreement where the first part happens but each side can have different tariffs on goods from other countries and then we have a "common market" which is not what we joined in 1973 and ratified in 1975 but the one under the Single European Act which includes the free movement of goods, capital, labour and services (the "Four Freedoms" or if you prefer, the Three Freedoms plus the other one).

Presumably, no one objects to free trade and therefore a Free Trade Agreement would seem to be the first step - then we have the Customs Union and I can see why some might get prickly. The other side may want to impose a 20% tariff on goods from Burkina Faso and Brazil, we might only want 10% - do we meet in the middle at 15%?

I don't know the intricacies but I can see why a Customs Union might be a useful first step but a Free Trade Agreement might suit more people (especially those whose antipathy towards the EU knows no bounds). Clearly, we cannot go back to any agreement which includes freedom of movement though that might change with time.

We already have a FTA with the EU. But not of course a single market.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Vox populi, vox dei.

We hold all the cards, it'll be the easiest deal in history, plus German car manufacturers as the EU needs us more than we need them.

That's easy for you to say in foresight.

German car manufacturers are currently dooming themselves by blocking tariffs on Chinese vehicles due to their 15% or so share of the Chinese market.

The 3rd generaation EVs from Mercedes and BMW look pretty good value and have decent performance.

In any case surely according to PB Free Traders competition spurs progress and is an advantage to customers.

There is also these innovations from BYD:

https://insideevs.com/features/782245/byd-breathrough-2026-megawatt-charging/

https://carnewschina.com/2025/12/21/byd-launched-home-charging-station-sharing-service-among-vehicle-owners-on-its-app/

The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.

The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.

But who wants to be seen in Chinese TAT

The market for cheap tat in the UK is enormous. Look at what most people wear about town nowadays. My neighbour just chopped a gorgeous cherry down to park their BYD on what used to be a garden.