Murnaghan Interview with Dominic Grieve, MP, former Attorney General [only], 23.10.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Canadian Trade Minister and the President of the European Parliament say they hope a trade deal can still be signed but the impasse after years of negotiations is a blow for both sides and there are big implications of course for Britain.  Joining me in the studio is the former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, Allie Rennison who heads up Europe and Trade Policy for the business lobby group the Institute of Directors and Dr Gerard Lyons, the co-chair of Economists for Brexit and Chief Economic Advisor at Policy Exchange, what a lot of titles you’ve all got.  Now let’s start with you Dominic Grieve, talking of course about CITA, the Canadian trade deal with the European Union that seems to have been kyboshed by the Walloons in Belgium.  How do you read this, does it augur badly for Britain’s negotiations with the European Union?

DOMINIC GRIEVE: It’s obviously bad new because it was in Britain’s interests that this agreement should be concluded while we’re still in the European Union.  My feeling is that it probably will get concluded, there have been examples of this type of obstruction at the last minute before.  I think in part it reflects some of the dysfunctional way in which the EU carries out its processes but it is clearly a desirable agreement.  Now so far as the United Kingdom’s future is concerned, when we leave the European Union we are going to have to renegotiate 53 existing agreements I think I am right in saying that we currently have with third countries and we will also have to negotiate new agreements with lots of other countries like Canada or the United States and I’m bound to say that I think that we will find them very complex and difficult to carry out because the world is getting more protectionist and there are greater difficulties in achieving free trade agreements and pursuing them, so I don’t really see this as a sign really one way or the other how things will be for us when we leave, what this shows is that achieving these agreements is complex and I wish that this particular one can be satisfactorily concluded.  

DM: Dominic Grieve, it’s a compelling point isn’t it, we are in a lot of agreements that don’t really suit the UK’s economy?

DOMINIC GRIEVE: I have to say I don’t really share the optimism that’s just been expressed.  I think the process of renegotiating our relationship with the EU is going to be of immense complexity, is going to take a vast amount of time and I don’t share the view that a World Trade Organisation relationship will not cause massive economic problems for this country, you need something than that. As for all the other trade agreements that we are going to want to negotiate with the rest of the world, I do acknowledge that if you are negotiating a trade agreement on your own then there are fewer factors from your end that you have to feed in but the idea that these trade agreements are easy is I think a fantasy, they are exceptionally difficult and then of course what you don’t then have is the clout of having a market of 500 million people which is the attraction for doing the negotiations.  

DM: Dominic Grieve, it all sounds fine.

DOMINIC GRIEVE: Access to the single market has been critical for the United Kingdom’s economic survival I would put it, in the last seven to eight years, it really has because it has …

GERARD LYONS: Access to it but not membership of the single market, they are different.

DOMINIC GRIEVE: But how do you have access to the single market unless you accept some of the single market’s rules?  This is why we do need this debate because quite frankly otherwise what we risk doing is we’re going to squeeze off all the inward investment into this country which is the one reason why the economy has continued growing in the way it has, we will not be able to trade and we will be greatly disadvantaged and it will affect everybody, especially the most vulnerable and the poorest in our society.

DM: Very good to see you all, thank you all very much indeed.