How long do you estimate it will take for us to get a deal after leaving with no Withdrawal Agreement?

Well, we don't know.

What would you anticipate Daisymae?

As someone who voted to leave I see no point in offering an opinion on GN as it will only be ridiculed or sneered at.

The Withdrawal Agreement said nothing about future trade deals.

What it addressed, as pointed out yesterday by Leo Varadkar, was the financial settlement, the treatment of UK citizens in other EU countries and their citizens in the UK and the question of the Irish border.

If disaster could not be averted, and we actually crashed out with no deal, these matters would be the first things we would have to address.

It also ensured there would be a two year transition period to allow an "orderly withdrawal" which would not happen with no deal.

The trade negotiations would then take longer and be far more difficult as the UK would be seen as an untrustworthy negotiating partner.

Obviously Remaining in the EU is by far the best option, but if we do leave, a no deal brexit is the very worst option. It would probably be 10 or 20 years before we could begin to mitigate the damage.

Has anybody here any experience of international negotiations? I haven't, so I don't know. All I know is what I've read about them.

Varadkar seemed to think that negotiating a US/UK FTA within three years would be a Herculean task. The EU/Canada deal took 7 or 8 years (from memory). The UK needs to negotiate something quickly with the EU unless it really wants to lose its biggest export market. Allegedly, we have continuity agreements with some small export markets, but apparently these still aren't finalised.

My money's on a minimum of three years for a trade agreement with the EU. It might not be quite so Herculean as a trade agreement with the US, because the required standards are already in place.

Thank you for letting us know why you won't be contributing to this thread petra.

I would say at least 5 years.

I'm sure the majority of the countries in the world operate under WTO rules, otherwise they wouldn't exist if it was just for Mauritania!

It is the EU who don't want a deal because they are frightened of the UK's potential success, meaning other member states may want to leave too. If the EU is such a wonderful club, why are they so afraid others will want to leave, surely, even Remainers can see this.

Even if we agreed to the transitional period, the situation would still be the same, just two years down the line and we would have been prevented from opening up other independent trade deals in that time. That's one reason why the withdrawal agreement is so bad.

Below is a very good article, if anyone is interested in reading it.............

.........'If anyone is trashing democracy, it’s the majority of MPs, hell-bent on overturning the result of the 2016 referendum. The latest dishonest excuse they’ve seized upon is stopping a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. The reality is most of them refuse to admit is that they want to stop Brexit altogether. They bleat about upholding parliamentary sovereignty. But only so they can surrender it to the EU. For the best part of the past five decades they have been content to sit back as the bulk of our laws and trading arrangements have been made by unelected foreign bureaucrats and judges.

Both parties, Conservative and Labour, were elected on a manifesto commitment to implement the result of the 2016 referendum. In the case of the Tories, they insisted no deal was better than a bad deal. They have now done a complete U-turn, thanks to the devious and duplicitous machinations of Theresa May, who suddenly decided that “No deal is better than a bad deal” actually meant the opposite, i.e. “A bad deal is better than no deal.” It’s not just the reputation of Parliament, Britain’s standing in the world as a beacon of democracy is being dragged through the mud. Three years and three months since a Tory government was given a clear instruction to get Britain out of the EU and all its works, it still hasn’t done it. Mrs May was a staunch aficionado of Europe. A Remainer to the core. She lacked the necessary moral fibre to free Britain from its European bondage. So she put on a fine act of virtue by advertising the fact that she was a Vicar’s daughter and that the wickedest things she had ever done in her life was to run through a field of corn. (Fully clothed, mind you, not naked!) The British public were taken in by her demure air of innocence and were naturally delighted to have as their prime minister a woman of such unparalleled virtue, whom many began to confuse in their dim-witted way with the saintly Mother Teresa of Calcutta. If they really wanted a deal, they could have voted for Mother Theresa’s dismal, defeatist withdrawal agreement. But they rejected it three times.

It is more than likely that Boris Johnson will agree to a souped-up version of Theresa May’s fake Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, thus betraying the 17.4 millions Leavers who voted for Brexit in June 2016. If so, Britain will remain a vassal state of Europe in perpetuity. If this is the final outcome after three years of dithering and duplicity—that Britain should get a FAKE BREXIT thrust upon it—democracy will indeed have been given the death blow in Britain........................

I don't understand your comment quizqueen. Mauritania is the only country in the world which operates solely under WTO rules. Every other country has agreements on some products, although possibly not all, and not all countries.

WTO exists when there isn't a trade agreement in place. For example, Country X might have a trade agreement with Country Y, but not Countries A and B.

Where did you get the idea that the EU doesn't want a trade deal with the UK because it's frightened of the UK's potential success? I'm afraid that sounds highly unlikely.

What's the source of your article, which I don't think is "very good" at all?

quizqueen I am more interested in the way the WTO works and how that will affect us if we leave the EU without a deal. Leave the politicians to their own sill games and look at how the WTO works.

The majority of countries only operate under WTO rules when they do not have a trade agreement with the country involved. Hence the comments about Mauretania, apparently they have no trade agreements with anybody, but they are hardly one of the world's main economies. We are

Of 135 non-EU full members of the World Trade Organisation, 58 currently trade with the EU under negotiated trade terms, and another 47 have preferential access to EU markets. So 105 of 135 countries have working arrangements with the EU, which means tarriff rates below WTO ones. These 105 will include all the main economies in the world, that is all our competitors.

Tariff rate quotas set the amount of certain goods that can enter a country at a cheaper tariff – usually zero. When the UK leaves the EU we will need to agree our own new TRQs with all 164 WTO members. The EU and UK have proposed splitting the existing quotas for specific goods among themselves on the basis of trading patterns over the last three years.

But the UK’s trading partners rightly complain that this simple split of the TRQ is not good enough. For example, if another country’s beef exports enter the UK to be processed, then move into the EU, under the new regime they will face two sets of quotas – instead of one, as happens now because we are EU members. Other countries want the UK to open up to more trade to compensate for the loss of privileged access to the EU’s market.

The US and several other countries – including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – have objected. Then last month, Russia blocked the proposal entirely. There can be no progress until Moscow’s complaint is resolved. Our post-Brexit trading future will now be at the long-drawn-out mercy of foreign judges who make up the appeals court of the WTO.

It requires a minimum of three judges, and judges may excuse themselves if they face a conflict of interest – such as their own government being involved.

Since 2017, Donald Trump has refused to agree to any new judges. There are now only three left: the terms of two expire in December 2019, the other in November 2020. If the UK leaves the EU with no deal then we might not have any WTO protection against cases involving the US, India or China – the nationalities of the remaining judges. And in 2020, all protection will cease – unless we are willing to accept the WTO’s initial ruling. This hardly constitutes “taking back control” so beloved of Brexiteers because we will be at the mercy of the foreign judges, if there be any, of the WTO appeals court.

Thank you, MOnica

Read what Liz Truss and the Department of Trade have been up to already negotiating round the world. Golden opportunities are there away from the EU.

How many agreements have they fully negotiated and are ready to sign the moemnt we leave the EU. How many are still in negotiation. What countries are the ready to go ones with?

I have answered my own question. Here is a document from the British Government. www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-trade-agreements-with-non-eu-countries-in-a-no-deal-brexit.

You will note that we have signed agreements with every country who needs us more than we need them. Missing from the list is the USA, any EU country, and China.

Here is a list of our main trade partners en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_United_Kingdom Of our top 20 trade partners we have made a deal with 1.

So that is alright then.

Wow! Thank you for that MOnica. I knew the whole process was fraught with difficulties, but I didn't appreciate just how difficult it would be.

I thought that we couldn't actually negotiate any trade deals while we were still members of the EU?

Are these 'agreements' actual trade deals or just statements of intent?

Where exactly are these golden opportunities?

There are no trade agreements signed.

The most simple one will take a year or two at least.

Not sure. But even if they are ready, bar the signature to be affixed the second we leave, they still account for very little of our trade, most of which goes to the EU, China and USA.

If anyone is really interested here is an explanation of the processes which need to be gone through to get a trade deal with the USA ratified

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1163477159308070912.html

What fun !

How long is a piece of string? I am sure agreements could be signed very quickly if we are desperate enough to agree to the terms offered but that would be a disaster. Canada has already said it won't discuss a trade deal with us until we are out because then they will get a better deal from us in our weakened position.

However long it takes our bargaining position will be very poor and we won't get anywhere near as good a deal as we currently have. In the meantime we will have to trade with each country on WTO rules which will be very costly.