Yet even they had dropped a startlingly ambitious proposal that had featured in its 2010 manifesto, to establish “a Commonwealth Free Trade Area” with the other Commonwealth countries. During the next two decades, bodies such as the Royal Commonwealth Society, the Commonwealth Business Council and the Commonwealth Secretariat pushed the idea vigorously. The report also claimed that “when bilateral partners are both Commonwealth members, they trade on average 20% more”, and that, compared with other country pairs, “the bilateral trade costs for Commonwealth partners are, on average, 19% lower”. First, as the study notes, there are wide variations in the extent to which individual Commonwealth countries trade with others. Brexit is unlikely to enhance British trade with Commonwealth countries.

Source: The Guardian April 10, 2018 04:52 UTC