It all makes perfect sense in his head no doubt, but not even a transitional deal should be too like what is currently in place. Even if it is temporary. Makes sense. I guess.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ith-status-quo

Britain needs continuity in its trading arrangements with the European Union, Liam Fox has said, but should not pursue a transitional Brexit deal that is too similar to membership of the bloc.

The international trade secretary told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show he wanted the EU without the UK to be successful with trade deals that “minimise trade barriers” but refused to be drawn on whether Britain should remain a part of the EU’s customs union.

Fox refused to confirm explicitly that he supported a transitional arrangement with the EU to tide Britain over between a formal exit in 2019 and any new trade deal with Brussels, an arrangement the chancellor, Philip Hammond, backs.

He said that depended on the kind of transitional deal that could be struck, saying an arrangement that was too close to the status quo would go against the wishes of those who had voted to leave the EU.

But the former defence minister insisted that he remained “instinctively a free trader”, adding: “It is very important that we have continuity in our trade and it makes no sense to impose tariffs across the European continue

What part of this is it that hardly anyone (whether poiticians, journalists, presenters, or voters) seems to understand?

The UK is not in a customs union with the EU.
The UK is part of the EU which is in a customs union separately with Turkey, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey....

Each separate customs union arrangement applies to each separate country/state/dependency,
with its main purpose being to remove some/most tariffs, customs duties, taxes & quotas on trade in some/most goods only. It doesn't cover services or capital.
Being in a customs union with the EU means that you have to follow their trade policy/regulations (ie. you must impose the same tariffs on non-EU imports), you have the same arrangements as the EU does with other countries, and you can't make your own separate trade deals - which would be disastrous for the UK (once out of the EU).

If Fox is proposing a custom customs union with the EU, where we don't have to impose tariffs and can make our own trade deals, then this is something that's never been done before - and is highly unlikely to ever be done in the future.

However, as a member of the EU, we're also a member of the Single (aka Internal) Market.

The internal market is the free movement of goods, services, capital & labour between all member states.

The only way currently to be a member of the internal market and therefore have full access to said internal market is to be a member of the EU or EFTA.

Once we leave the EU, we will no longer be in the Single Market and no longer be in a customs union with any of the countries that are currently in a customs union with the EU.

The only intermediary option we should be considering is a Switzerland style EFTA one, where we're an EFTA member with full access to the single/internal market (yes, this would involve still paying a (lesser) fee), but allowed to make our own bilateral trade deals, not bound by customs union laws, not bound by CAP and CFP (agriculture/fishing), and able to enact an emergency brake on free movement of labour - plus other exclusive bilateral arrangements - until a point that we're ready to move on (i.e. when all our new FTAs have been ratified, etc).

People keep asking how did we cope before we were in the EEC/EU? But they seem to conveniently overlook that we were in the EFTA between 1960-1972 and already had free trade with the EEC and other EFTA countries before we were in the EU - i.e. for a total of 56 years now.

Countries such as the USA, China, etc, who've never had free trade with the EEA countries will never miss what they've never had. We, on the other hand....

Would the more extreme (aka hard) brexiters really be that perturbed if we went into some kind of transitional arrangement for eg. 5-10 years, if it keeps the economy stable, keeps single market access for exporters, UK-based foreign businesses and banks & financial services, and prevented a recession? Of course, if it did happen, then we'd never know if there would've been a recession - but is that a risk worth taking?

Of course, the government could say we've fulfilled the referendum result by leaving the EU, but we're now negotiating a transitional arrangement to save the economy, or wtte. And if people aren't happy, then they can vote for someone else at the 2020 GE...

I'm not sure what other transitional type deal they'd be hoping for....
They keep saying wtteo "a British style deal that's best for Britain" but that's the equivalent of the "have our cake and eat it" pipedream/fantasy.

Oh well, bring on A50 to get the ball rolling - 3 months to go - and that's just for the exit negotiations to begin....
as other officials are saying, any additional future (trade) deal beyond the initial exit agreement could take many years to complete....

Fox, discredited defence secretary and incompetent freeloader, is way out of his depth in these trade negotiations. He lied prior to the referendum and is now having to eat his words. His involvement in the shabby Werrity fiasco is not forgotten.