Quote Originally Posted by noel View Post
That's a pretty sweeping statement MR. Almost Johnson-esque. Can you provide any figures on this? The part that would be most relevant would be to ask about the size of these economies, and whether these large and fast-growing economies of comparable size to those within the EU already have trade deals with the EU.

I wouldn't like to walk away from an existing deal with China with the promise of a deal with Nigeria.
Here you go. The EU is shrinking as a percentage of the world economy.

https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-has-s...world-economy/

As for trade deals, the EU is notoriously bad at agreeing and ratifying them. Noel you don't need to worry about walking away from an existing deal with China, because the EU doesn't have one. Switzerland on the other hand does. The reason the EU is poor at agreeing free trade deals is because it has to try and accommodate the interests of 28 different countries. Sometimes even individual regions have to have their say. The EU Canada trade deal was nearly scuppered by the Belgium region of Wallonia.

Furthermore very few of the trade deals the EU has negotiated include services, which as we know is where the UK is strong. Britain going it along can negotiate trade deals that do include services by offering in exchange tariff free access to its huge consumer market.