If Britain were to vote to leave the EU, we’d promptly set about agreeing our own trade deals as a sovereign nation. But what about our new trade deal with the EU itself? What conditions would this wounded beast set, and might we end up accepting the diktats and red tape that drove us mad in the first place? I look at this in my Daily Telegraph column yesterday.
Take Norway: in 1994 it voted to stay out of the EU yet has ended up with plenty of the problems that drive Britain up the wall now. If anything, things are worse there: it has ended up paying almost as much, per capita, to the EU. It had to accept free movement of people as part of its deal with the EU. It’s refugee intake trebled last year; if you adjust for population and its refugee count is ten times the size of UK.
Norway’s refugee population is expected to double
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