Customs Union

justincase

Do we have to? Is Canada bothered about changing the EU?

Rasczak

Well we can certainly change their finances

springtide

Less than 20% of Canada's trade is with the EU.

Sonic67

No, but we appear to be.  We don't want borders/customs as far as I can tell from the negotiations.

Or as Mogg put it, Canada    [ which translates to "The Norway model, but without any of the concessions" ]

Sonic67

Once we are out I hope that will be the same for us.

If you wanted to trade with the EU we would have stayed in. The idea is we leave and trade with the rest of the planet.

springtide

We'd be trading with the EU, no tarrifs and free to make deals with the rest of the world.

What is a 'Canada-style' trade deal?

Sonic67

I know roughly what the Canada trade deal is about, but as I previously mentioned, this doesn't include borders/customs arrangements which is the sticking point.

i.e.  The Norway model, but without any of the concessions

springtide

What is a 'Canada-style' trade deal?

It does not remove border controls, but it encourages the use of advanced electronic checking to speed customs clearance.

Something that has been touted for some time. Even with Norway.

Frictionless borders: learning from Norway

If you want to know how to run an efficient, hi-tech, virtually frictionless border - come to Norway. At least, that's what Norwegian Customs would have you believe.

But this country also has advice for the UK about making its border run smoothly after Brexit - it's about collaboration, not just technology.

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, has a thousand-mile frontier with Sweden, the EU's longest land border. The Norwegians are part of the European Economic Area, meaning they enjoy tariff-free trade, but they still have to mount customs checks at the borders.

"I don't think there's any border in the world that's so smooth," says Kristen Hoiberget who runs the customs operation at Svinesund, one of a dozen border crossings that freight companies are allowed to use. He says the average waiting time is eight minutes.

There has been a major investment in technology to make things run more smoothly. That includes IT systems allowing goods to be declared to customs before they leave the warehouse, and a sophisticated communications network - Nordnet - that allows the 1,300 customs officials to co-ordinate the policing of such a long border.

Sonic67

Geographically these two countries are very different.

The UK (especially with the Channel Tunnel) is very similar to Norway.  So are you suggesting we should have the Norway model?

blackrod

Staying in the customs union isn't Brexit either.  But, no one (apart from a few like Clegg) warned of the issue of NI and how the utopian idea of Brexit was impossible.