Andrea Leadsom's Fresh Start website has a number of policy documents including one on trade (HERE) which they call green papers although they are not official government documents at all.
The trade one is interesting because it reviews several options like the Norway and Swiss models as well as trading on WTO rules, the back stop if we trigger Article 50 and fail to get a trade agreement with the EU settled in two years and the other 27 members do not give us an extension.
Her own trade policy says (top of page 38):
In the absence of preferential trade agreements with the EU and other countries the UK would have to pay MFN rates [WTO rules] on all exchanges until new regimes could be put in place, a process that could take many years, and could cause permanent damage to the UK economy. This would be extremely damaging and destabilising for UK business, which would be forced to adapt to a radically different trading regime, unless the UK can assign some of the existing EU arrangements to a bilateral agreement.
The EU has already said we must first withdraw then negotiate a free trade deal (HERE) so the permanent damage will occur for certain if this happens. On the other hand if the EU relents and we negotiate a FTA during withdrawal we are only gambling that UK industry will not be permanently damaged. Either way it does not look good.
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