First of all, dealing with the point you make abut TTIP, well, of course, there are versions of TTIP that are already in existence, such as with Canada and other countries, all of which deal with those particular issues. Of course, they apply to the UK as long as we are a member of the European Union.

Of course, the TTIP discussions with the United States of America did not progress, and now seem to have faltered, but part of their objective was to try and remove some of these behind-the-border issues. Whatever happens in respect of those agreements, if you have the European Union working to a particular standard, and those standards become part of an agreement, in order to trade with the EU, it is very likely that it will be the EU standard that we have to comply with, and we will be de facto bound by it if we actually want to trade.

In terms of our position with the World Trade Organization, of course it is presented as though somehow it is an easy fallback position, a sort of default position—if things don’t work out with the EU, there’s nevertheless some sort of simple default position. That really isn’t the case, because the arrangements with the World Trade Organization are negotiated by the EU on behalf of all its members, so we would have to, first of all, extricate ourselves from the European Union and then actually set about the establishment of our own schedules of trade with the World Trade Organization. There was a very interesting quote recently in ‘The Times’ from Roberto Azevêdo, the World Trade Organization’s director general, who said: there is no precedent for extricating itself from an economic union while inside the organisation—the process would not be easy and would likely take years before the UK’s WTO position was settled, not least because all the other member states would have to agree.

And, of course, one of the consequences is that while you’re going through this period of uncertainty, markets are being targeted and, as a trading nation, the UK is increasingly sidelined. The other problem is, although certain areas of trade might be relatively simple, perhaps in certain areas of manufactured goods, of course there are major problems in respect of agriculture, something which will be of massive concern to Wales, in particular, because it’s not just about tariffs, but it’s also about quotas, and synergistic quotas don’t relate to tariffs and they vary from country to country. So, I suppose the point being made is that the idea that there is somehow some simple fallback position—. It isn’t there, it doesn’t exist, and I have to say that membership of the customs union becomes more attractive the more one delves into the possibility of being bound by World Trade Organization rules.