The UK should remain a member of the Customs Union

I would like to start my rebuttal by thanking you for that opening correct; the line should have read "You believe that since the referendum was simply on whether or not Britain should leave the EU". That out of the way, the reason I posted why I thought it was more likely for the British people to vote for leaving the customs union and single market, given the chance, wasn't because I was attempting to use it as a reason, but rather in response to your assertion that the margin of the vote was small and therefore it is more undemocratic to take us out of the single market, as well as comments of the success of Labour. I think you will agree that we can't make decisions based on speculation for what the people would "probably" want, since without another referendum on the customs union, we simply don't know. As such, unless there is another referendum, which there won't be (this is the United Kingdom, not Switzerland), we should drop any argument of mandate for staying within the customs union or for leaving it, since there is none. As such we should focus on the actual benefits and costs of the customs union. Now for the response to what I believe is the main body of your argument, the economics. First, you are right in that trade with the EU would be damaged if the left the customs union. This is without question since, even with a comprehensive trade deal, businesses wishing to trade with the EU would have to enter through customs which would cause additional cost due to delays and service costs. However the point remains that we would not be able to set, or rather remove, our own tariffs. You state the businesses tell us that their companies will be damaged by customs declarations, and would become uncompetitive. This is certainly true for those businesses, but not due to any intrinsic economic reliance on the EU. Let us remember that these companies are the companies that have been built up within the EEC for the last 45 and so of course their businesses will be affected severely, but that doesn't mean that British businesses will become uncompetitive in the long term. In addition your statement that the we would lose 44% of our global trade due to EU customs is clearly hyperbolic, since 56% of our trade is with countries that we neither share free trade agreements nor a customs union. I will now tackle your statements questioning the value of free trade with the rest of the world, including your statements of EU tariffs being "satisfactory" and your statements of the EU's own economic strength. First of all, by stating that EU tariffs are satisfactory for our needs. Even ignoring the fact that it shouldn't be up to foreign powers who we trade with, especially when a huge part of the debate was on sovereignty, this is a clearly ridiculous given the tariffs on everyday goods from other UK allies. For example did you know that the EU raises 20-40% tariffs on meat produce from Australia, check for yourself: http://madb.europa.eu... Do you really think that raising tariffs of 20-40% of close UK allies is somehow satisfactory? Why should British consumers and Australian farmers have to lose out because the EC wants to "protect" French farmers. As for the EU's economic strength, 17% is obviously a very significant amount, but 83% is more. Why should we lose out on the vast majority of the global economy, for slightly greater access to less than a fifth of it, especially when that proportion is becoming smaller as the rest of the world catch up to the EU. Also, your point on the number of trade deals required to be signed is mute, even without remembering that the US has a higher GDP than the EU alone https://en.wikipedia.org...(nominal), leaving the customs union is a long term decision, and we shouldn't base that decision on potential short term difficulties. Finally, I will combat the notion that outside the EU we would lose negotiating power in trade agreements, and that we would be better off letting the EU deal with those agreements for us. The first of these points is made ridiculous by both logical sense and with specific evidence to the contrary. Trade is not a matter where one side wins, it benefits everyone and gets everyone lower prices. The main reason trade deals are put in place is so that one side can't just isolate their economy out of the blue, for political reasons. As such, it makes no sense why a larger country would not still want to make a deal with a smaller country. This idea is backed up by many very small countries which still manage to have made many trade deals, such as: New Zealand https://www.mfat.govt.nz... Switzerland https://www.seco.admin.ch... Singapore https://ie.enterprisesg.gov.sg... All three of these countries have less than 1/3 the GDP of the UK. Finally, the notion that the EU would sign trade agreements for us is also quickly disproven by the EU's slow adoption of free trade agreements, even with countries with close ties to the EU. The poster child of this is the EU free trade deal with Canada, one of the EU's closest allies, was only put into effect in late 2017, and yet had been negotiated since 2008, discussed openly since 2004, and first proposed in the 1990s https://en.wikipedia.org.... May I remind you that the EU still doesn't have a free trade agreement with Australia or the US. To conclude, the EU is shrinking in economic influence, it is highly protectionist, even against allies, and the benefits of free trade with the rest of the world would far out weigh any benefits gained from customs free access to the EU. (I am at the character limit.) I look forward to your rebuttal.