The Cod Wars and sovereignty

The Cod Wars were 'fought' between the UK and Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Iceland won every time. We lost access to prime fishing areas and thousands of fishermen lost their livelihood.

Why did we lose? We are much bigger than Iceland in every way - our GDP, our population, our armed forces.

We lost because all wars are about alliances. In this case Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO if we didn't concede to their demands. This would have prevented NATO access to a critical submarine route. The other members of NATO decided that would be worse than some British job losses, and we had to concede to Iceland's demands.

Gibraltar

Another case to consider is what happened the last time things became strained over Gibraltar. In 2013 Spain imposed very strict border controls, causing a lot of problems for Gibraltar residents (many of whom work in Spain). We asked the European Commission to arbitrate, and threatened to go to the European Court of Justice. This time it was the Spanish who capitulated.

Brexit has given Spain the opportunity to try again. Once we are not part of the EU then any dispute over Gibraltar has to be settled by Spain and ourselves. It may end up being settled using political force with a dressing of armed force ("to show we mean business" as one politician put it). We may well lose this time, as Spain has the EU and we will have no-one.

Sovereignty

The point of both these cases is that the nations concerned gave up sovereignty.

In the first case our membership of an international organisation meant we had to take an economic hit for the good of the whole group. If we had not been part of NATO then Iceland could not have used the threat of withdrawal.

In the second case our membership of an international organisation meant we could go to arbitration over a dispute with another member. However, to do this we had to agree to abide by the decision whether we liked it or not - we had to give up sovereignty.

Giving up sovereignty has both costs and benefits. Our withdrawal from the EU has the benefit of letting us make our own trade deals, however this is at the cost of losing the deals we already have, losing the backing of the EU in trade and border disputes and losing the their expertise in making trade deals.

WTO rules

Ironically, the core Brexiteer trade strategy is for the UK to trade on WTO rules. This is an international organisation, to join them you have to agree to follow their rules. So right from the start we are giving up our sovereignty over trade to another group.

Worse, the WTO is in crisis. The US under Mr Trump is doing its best to emasculate the organisation by preventing it from doing its basic job - sorting out arguments. The WTO has a panel of judges who rule on trade disputes. A number of the judges are retiring, but the US trade representative has prevented any new judges being appointed to this panel.

Right now there are only three judges left - the minimum required for a panel. Two of the judges will be stepping down this year. If the US continues to block new appointments then the WTO will be unable to arbitrate in disputes - meaning that "WTO rules" will become "WTO suggestions". Rules which are not enforced are no longer rules.

So we are abandoning the biggest trade bloc on Earth, our biggest trading partner, with not a single trade agreement in place, just when the two most powerful countries in the world are gearing up for a trade war - and we hope to rely on WTO rules which can't be enforced.

This isn't what we were promised by the Leave campaign.