Commnews

El Garundian continues its shock horror headlines campaign for all this week it seems. Oh good.

yesterday it was 

Divide and rule tactics could leave UK without deal, say EU politicians 

This story was really about a possible UK campiagn to make individual deals with EU members -- but the Graun reported the possible reaction by the EU instead, as if to forestall from the very begining the tactics of separate deals which might make Brexit more successful. Can't have that. The 'news' value was that this possible angry reponse was leaked.

Today it was: 

'No deal' Brexit would mean £6bn in extra costs for UK exporters 

The figure arises from an interpretation by Graiun staff of UN and World Bank estimates of the size of tariffs that would be due on EU imports under WTO rules (the fall back position if no deal was agreed with the EU). It's a bit naughty because importers pay tariffs and not all of these would appear as costs necessarily, although this is mentioned in the actual article. The article also assumes this worst case scenario would apply of course, that the EU would truculently avoid all other deals, and also fails to calculate the amount recovered by EU imports that would also face tariffs. They mention but dismiss the view that cheaper imports would supply any shortfall produced by EU imports paying equal tariffs -- the country would be 'flooded with cheap imports' (and?),  or that demand might not be that elastic for British exports.