Can the UK Negotiate a New Kind of Free Trade Arrangement?

This paper considers the possible post-Brexit trading relationships between the UK and EU, and analyses the likelihood of achieving them. The main conclusion is that it would be difficult or impossible to negotiate a special new agreement, but that all the UK’s objectives would be achieved if the UK would join the European Economic Area (EEA). The author argues that the EEA offers the best, and perhaps the only, solution, both for the UK as a whole and for Scotland and both parts of Ireland.

John Temple Lang is a Solicitor, an Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He spent more than twenty years in the Legal Service and the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission. He has published over 300 articles on legal topics and has lectured at many conferences in Europe and North America.