There has been much talk of the UK rapidly signing up trade deals with all and sundry but in practice they are far more complex than the leaver optimists think. The Telegraph no less has a measured piece (HERE) setting out some of the problems. Firstly, we will not be able to quickly adopt the 50 or so FTAs that the EU already has in place with a delete and replace exercise. We are 65m people while the EU is 500m - quite a difference.
The proposed 300 trade negotiators will not be nearly enough and several people experienced in FTAs warn that quick deals are almost always signed at the expense of the country most desperate to sign. And finally the article cautions against thinking free trade deals are a kind of panacea:
The brutal truth is that the only FTAs that have a lot of impact in terms of trade and investment flows are those between geographically proximate partners. The most important of these are NAFTA and the EU. Those between distant countries tend to be far less effective.
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