Wednesday 29 June 2016

What do we want?

The Tories seem to be getting a little confused about what deal they should be working towards now we've voted to leave the EU. We thought we'd help ...

No free movement of people. Not even if it's limited to free movement of workers. We have 1.7m unemployed people already living in the UK, let's get them into work before we consider opening our borders to economic immigration.

Yes to free movement of goods and services. The EU only accounts for 8.5% of our trade but tariffs aren't good for business. We want free trade with the EU and that includes services as well as goods. That also applies to passporting financial services.

We want trade deals now. We gave up our seat on the World Trade Organisation for the EU. Now we're leaving we need to take it back and get some trade deals done now. We've been marginalising our international trade partners for too long.

No TTIP. This is important. TTIP is an EU-US treaty and we want no part of it. We don't want the NHS privatised, we don't want unlabelled GM foods and we don't want American companies to be given the ability to sue the government for getting in the way of their profits. We mustn't be part of the TTIP agreement.

Ditch the EU flags. We've told the government we want to leave the EU so let's start with the symbolic gesture of removing that icon of European imperialism from our public buildings.

Visa free travel. We top the world league tables for visa-free travel alongside Germany. We don't want unnecessary barriers to travel.

Get Nigel on the team. Vote Leave couldn't even manage to keep volunteers stocked up with leaflets and posters and their army of volunteers turned out to be UKIP members. The referendum was won despite Vote Leave, not because of them. There would be no referendum if it wasn't for Nigel Farage and nobody has a clearer and more comprehensive vision of how to extricate ourselves from the EU embrace the world. The government had no exit plan and nor did Vote Leave. Instead of making it up as they go along, get Nigel Farage on the team and get it right first time.