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Comment by blibble | Hacker News Reader

that is not in question, but full membership is now politically unacceptable to the UK electorate

the UK Government wants to keep barriers to trade as low as possible, it is seeking a free trade agreement

the EU is currently ratifying the Canadian FTA, and last week announced agreement with Japan had been reached that would reduce barriers by 99%[1]... whilst simultaneously threatening the UK with increased barriers to trade

[1]: https://www.ft.com/content/c874d02a-60ba-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26...

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> that is not in question, but full membership is now politically unacceptable to the UK electorate

> the UK Government wants to keep barriers to trade as low as possible, it is seeking a free trade agreement

UK electorate cannot have both

so what's this?

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/ceta-explaine...

An agreement that was negotiated for a long, long time? Not two years

And what the UK wants is not a free trade agreement, they want the same acces that they have now.

yes, it took a while to negotiate

the UK wants an "ambitious free trade agreement", not membership of the single market, if you don't believe me see https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negot...

    So we do not seek membership of the single market. Instead we seek the greatest possible access to it through a new, comprehensive, bold and ambitious free trade agreement.

Im not going to read that huge list of links, but from what I understand CETA doesn't cover e.g. eggs, poultry... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/15/brexit-canada-...

And doesn't cover finantial services, thing that is very important for the UK

A much more limited arrangement than the single market.

Why not?

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