Free Trade & National Sovereignty

I for one dont care because it wont make an iota of difference to the UK.
I AM surprised that after all the wails of non democratic representation in the EU, the UK is trying to celebrate joining a group of countries which has zero democratic structure and hugely weighted to Pacific Rim interests.

Without a referendum.
Or indeed almost no public education or explanation or knowledge about what this is.

Still, memories are short. There is no practical benefit to this group no one can remember the name of, but the political benefits for the Brexit government are touted with no chance of counter argument.
How convenient that once again they will be promising wonderful things and Joe Average will have no voice or choice.

Enjoy your palm oil and try not to think of a world without orangutangs. And all that pollution from long range transport. I was under the impression the UK was interested in reducing emissions.

To be honest my ideal would be a world with free trade, just on guard against poor quality, smuggling and phytosanitary controls. I note there is nothing in this CPTTPCTCP thing ( reads like a genetic code) that says anything about those things.
Nor do we know what the unelected controlling group will decide.

So we will just have to rely on the Tories knowing what they are doing.

LOLOLOLOL

By the way Bucky, a country can be a member of any number of trade organisations. This is not an either/or issue.
So much for knowing what you are talking about.

£1.8B extra income once up and running for 10 years would help recuperate the 15-year-£33B Brexit loss!  Yay.  But it's a start, isn't it?

Here's something just as interesting:  looks like the deal allows multinational companies to sue the government -- our government -- for introducing policies that threaten their profits.  So, we seem to be back to square one, required to play on a level playing field.  This time around, though, CEOs of multinationals will tell us how to level the playing field.  Yay. Follow the rules or else, we will have to appear in court somewhere in the Pacific?
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www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/uk-joins-asia-pacific-cptpp-trade-bloc-that-includes-japan-and-australia/ar-AA19hU7D?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=e345a727d7e54591a63d4e24b08d453b&ei=12

Britain has joined the 11-member strong Asia-Pacific trade bloc that includes Japan and Australia after nearly two years of negotiations.  The deal, part of a push to agree worldwide trade deals after Brexit, secures access for British exporters to 500 million people in the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Spanning Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Vietnam and Malaysia, the CPTPP is expected to be ratified by the UK parliament and those of the other 11 member states later this year.

The government said the deal, which will cut tariffs on exports of food, drink and cars, would generate £1.8bn of extra income once it had been up and running for 10 years, which is about 0.08% of the UK’s annual gross national product (GDP).

Unions condemned clauses in the deal that will allow large companies to sue the UK government behind closed doors if they believe their profits have suffered from changes to laws or regulations.  The TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, said: “This deal allows multinational corporations to sue the UK government in secret courts for introducing policies which threaten their profits – this could include an increase in the minimum wage or bringing energy companies back into public ownership.”

Nowak said the deal would sanction the exploitation of workers in Vietnam and Brunei “where independent unions are banned, and Malaysia where migrant workers are subject to forced labour”.

China, which applied to become a member in 2021, several months after the UK, is likely to face significant pushback from members, including the UK, that will argue Beijing should be blocked unless it complies with existing international trade rules.

Some trade experts said joining the CPTPP bloc would harm the UK’s ability to rejoin the EU at a later date, arguing that harmonising trade rules with the CPTPP countries would drive a wedge between Brussels and London.  Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the advisory firm Flint Global, said: “CPTPP membership does make it more difficult for UK to rejoin EU customs union. But, given the UK will seemingly join without significant changes to EU-inherited regulations, it also demonstrates that EU and CPTPP regulatory approaches are compatible.”

The UK has bilateral deals with many of the countries inside the bloc, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, minimising the benefit of the overarching agreement.  However, ministers expect the deal to become increasingly important as the trade bloc, which will boast a GDP of $11tn, offers access to more nations.

Any member of trade organisations except the EU's outdated, solemn model you mean, Oray. 

Ah, No.  Reiterating your non-argument doesn't cut it.  "Nuff said" is not enough -- that is, if you want an intelligent discussion about your own post.  You have to clarify your position.   So.  Do you or do you not agree that the CPTPP rules on fair competition (as gleaned from the article, of course) are no different from the EU level-playing-field rules?

This trading block doesn't have a court, a parliament, a budget, a civil service or a flag. It doesn't demand enormous annual fees to fund its army of of faceless unacoutable over-paid bureaucrats. It doesn't have a huge sense of self-importance, and it doesn't try to take over sovereignty of its member states. How refreshing.

We don't need a democratic vote to have a free-trade agreement Vinny.

We're not joining a quasi-free-trade bloc that demands annual fees, free movement of labour, surrendering fishing rights, surrendering sovereignty to a foreign court and compulsory impositions of tariff barriers against other countries.

The UK is joining a more advanced and liberalising trade pact than that of the EU.

The CPTPP even requires the UK has control over its own regulatory system, so that future governments will be hard pressed now for 'dynamic alignment' with the EU.

It sort of mocks one the other predicated chapters in the story called 'Project Fear' that Britain was going to become a wet, windy, grey rock isolated out in the Atlantic with no friends to trade with. Remember that one?

The UK is trailblazing and has moved from an inward looking region to a global free-trading outlook. The British Chambers of Commerce believe 90% of global middle-class growth is predicted to happen in the Indo-Pacific region of the world over

the next seven years.

More of your usual pro EUSSR bollox.