I follow a number of academics and economists. Peter Ungphakhorn (I think that's how it is spelt) being one of them.
Before his retirement, Peter worked at WTO for a number of years. His information appears relatively unbiased and very relevant.
He states a trade agreement is required for UK and EU to trade on exclusive WTO terms following Brexit. Leaving without an agreement would invoke standard tariffs, however, if UK would wish to offer zero tariffs unilaterally to EU without the UK/EU WTO trade agreement being in place they could but then the UK would have to apply the same zero rate to all other trading partners unless there were already trade agreements in place with these partners. This of course could prove detrimental. The Agreement could just be one single piece of paper which sets out the trading terms and this would quickly be approved by WTO (it needs to comply with section 24 of the GATT agreement).
The confounding issue appears to be though that both sides are attaching non trading terms and exceptions to any agreement making what could be an easy process nigh on impossible.
Following these more knowledgeable people is much more informative allowing a more reasoned perspective than the scaremongering sensationalist sound bites being pumped into the media.
