Quote Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever View Post
Back to Brexit and it was foolish of Fox to say it would be the "easiest deal in history". He made it on the basis that the UK and EU started from a position of regulatory equivalence. But it takes two to tango and clearly the EU desires to punish the UK and to try to ensure that Brexit is a failure. They obviously want to deter others from doing the same thing. But that doesn't mean that we are wrong to exit the EU. To me the fact that the only way they think they can keep their members is to administer punishment beatings shows that it can't be much of a club in the first place.
I don't think it was foolish and note he said "should" but is almost always quoting as saying "would". That one letter is quite significant.

Here is the quote from the BBC website following the Today programme where he said this.

"Coming to a free trade agreement with the EU should be "one of the easiest in human history" because our rules and laws are already the same, the international trade secretary has said.
Liam Fox is to set out his vision of the UK's trading relationship with the rest of the world after Brexit.
"The only reason we wouldn't come to a free and open agreement is because politics gets in the way of economics," Dr Fox told the Today programme."

Taken in full, it is bang on and it is politics that has got in the way.

By the way, I don't like Fox, never have.

If you go back to Mrs May's Lancaster House speech, 2 months before Article 50 was invoked, it set out a comprehensive FTA, outside the Single Market, Outside the Customs Union, but with as close cooperation as possible to keep trade frictions as low as possible between UK and EU.

The UK Politicians have got in the way, whether the 80% remain cabinet, the 80% remain commons, the nearer 90% remain lords and the pro-Remain DEXU Select Committee.


The EU politicians have got in the way - of course they want to extract everything they can and have taken advantage of mistakes made by Mrs May.
Best example is refusing to agree an outlined future trading position and expecting us to make commitments on the NI border before we knew what the likely end trading terms would be. Mrs May caved in when she agreed the December 2017 joint declaration.

But Fox was right, it should have been easier, but politics has got in the way.