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The UK has become a member of the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership), with many Brexiters insisting that opportunities to trade with the other side of the world are better than the opportunities to trade with our neighbours.
Derek Matthews told us, “Sixteen trillion pounds is a huge amount of money, so this is a good thing; it says so in the headlines I saw in all the very pro-Brexit media I consume.
“I don’t care that the CPTPP is only worth 0.08% to our GDP according to the government itself. You should know by now that I don’t care about facts; if I did, I wouldn’t have voted for Brexit in the first place, would I?
“What matters is how I feel emotionally about this, and I feel like the opportunity for our cottage industries to supply products next day to our New Zealand neighbours has been underestimated.
“What? The EU has a free trade agreement with Japan now? And economic agreements with three of the other largest members of the CPTPP? Well so what. I still feel emotionally like we’re getting access to something here that wouldn’t have been possible without Brexit, so I’m going to pretend this is the reality.”
Meanwhile, economic experts have added, “Being in the CPTPP is better than not being in the CPTPP, no one is disputing that.
“However, the CPTPP is a group of countries with a combined GDP of twelve trillion pounds. This can sound like an incredible opportunity, and it is, if you ignore the fact that the EU is a market of sixteen trillion pounds and is literally on our doorstep.
“There is no way for a rational person to describe the CPTPP as an excellent opportunity without also admitting that access to the single market would be a MUCH bigger and better opportunity.
“But no, most Brexiters aren’t rational.”
