Just to remind, the only fair trade is free trade

Given the arguments going on about the UK’s new relationship with the European Union a little reminder to everyone - the only fair trade is free trade:

The main stumbling block is measures to ensure that trade is fair. If Britain and the EU are to allow unfettered access to each other’s markets, then there must be mechanisms in place to prevent undercutting – whether it takes the form of a race to the bottom in stripping workers’ rights and environmental protections, or artificially lowering the costs of production with direct or indirect state subsidies.

This is to entirely miss the point. Imagine - go on, just imagine - that some people are willing to work for £100 a month to make t-shirts. Given the options available to them in the time and place they’re at this seems like a reasonable deal to them. So, given that this wage is below the minimum wage in the UK should we ban imports from them? The argument about no undercutting insists yes, we should ban.

That’s the end of third world garment production then and the return of tens of millions to penury.

If we in Britain - or them over there in the remnant EU of course - decide that we’re willing to go to work under this or that other set of rules then that’s up to us - or them.

But even that obviousness still doesn’t quite plumb the depths of the mistake being made here. For trade isn’t about access to someone else’s markets. It’s that consumers gain access to the production they desire. The argument for free trade isn’t that British cheese makers may sell in Berlin, or that German car makers may in Grimsby. It’s that Jam Donuts may buy their cheese from anyone, worldwide, so too that Codheads can drive the vehicles they desire, both free of bureaucratic restriction.

What the treaty should be is therefore obvious, as we’ve said before:

1) There will be no tariff or non-tariff barriers on imports into the UK.

2) Imports will be regulated in exactly the same manner as domestic production.

3) You can do what you like.

4) Err, that’s it.

The only fair trade is free trade.