There is a single market for services (of which we in the UK are still part of for the next seven hours). It is astonishing that anyone, especially our Prime Minister, can assert otherwise. I cannot believe that Johnson is so ignorant to believe that. It is yet another outrageous lie.The free movement of services is one of the four "fundamental freedoms", (i.e. the whole point of the European Single Market) that protects the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. If anyone really doubts this, I suggest that they read Articles 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (the "Lisbon Treaty"). Articles 49"Within the framework of the provisions set out below, restrictions on the freedom of establishment of nationals of a Member State in the territory of another Member State shall be prohibited. Such prohibition shall also apply to restrictions on the setting-up of agencies, branches or subsidiaries by nationals of any Member State established in the territory of any Member State.Freedom of establishment shall include the right to take up and pursue activities as self-employed persons and to set up and manage undertakings, in particular companies or firms within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 54, under the conditions laid down for its own nationals by the law of the country where such establishment is effected, subject to the provisions of the Chapter relating to capital.The European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, may extend the provisions of the Chapter to nationals of a third country who provide services and who are established within the Union."Article 56 "Within the framework of the provisions set out below, restrictions on freedom to provide services within the Union shall be prohibited in respect of nationals of Member States who are established in a Member State other than that of the person for whom the services are intended."Services are 80% of the UK economy, and 70% of the EU's economy as a whole. it is the sector where the UK has a trade surplus with the UK, and a strong competitive advantage. Which makes it all the more astonishing that services were left out of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The UK has particular strength in financial services: "In 2018, the financial services sector contributed £132 billion to the UK economy, 6.9% of total economic output." (House of Commons Library: Financial services: contribution to the UK economy. 31 July 2019). "According to the Office for National Statistics, fishing was worth £437m to the UK economy in 2019. By comparison, the financial services industry was worth £126bn." (BBC).As has been pointed elsewhere, the word "fish" appears 368 times in the UK / EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. "Financial services" appears 107 time BUT with a significant number of those references relating to provisions stated as "not applying to financial services".The "passporting rights", i.e. the rights for financial services business to set up branches, and to provide services, throughout the EEA (whilst being subject to the authorisation and regulation of its home state regulator) comes to an end today for UK companies. So does the right of any company in the EEA to provide "information society services" into the UK under the E-Commerce Directive (and vice versa). This covers as "any service normally provided for remuneration at a distance, by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including digital compression) and storage of data, at the individual request of a recipient of the service". This means on line sales of goods, the ability to offer credit when selling goods, the provision of insurance services; etc. etc. etc.This is serious stuff. It will place UK businesses at a massive disavantage. The market to which a UK business has straightfoward access has dropped from over 500 million people to just 66 million. This means that many long established and new UK businesses are no longer viable, or at least no longer viable if they remain based on the UK.Take just one small sector as an example - "fintech" - i.e. companies providing financial services technology (new "challenger" banks, investment platforms, payment services companies, etc. etc.), which is an area where the UK has been very sucessful - truely "World Leading" - by some measures about half of the entire sector Worldwide (and alone employs 10 times more people in the UK than the fishing industry).Brexit will severly damage - and potentially kill - that industry with its double whammy - firstly by destroying its "route to market" (the biggest challenge for any new business), and secondly by destroying its access to talent from across the EEA. This is just but one example of the mindless vandalism that Brexit will cause to the UK economy.And all for what? (Still waiting an answer to that one).At least we now know the true meaning of sovereignty: -- "sovereignty" = "more fish" (but only possibly - and then only in five years' time).
T P Howell ● 2127d