The Chequers Plan has to be withdrawn if we are to achieve a meaningful Brexit. Discussions between the EU and UK about allowing an extension to the transition period in return for dropping the unnecessary Irish backstop are only of relevance if it means a Canada-style deal can then go ahead – it should not be a precursor to accepting a Chequers-based agreement. The reason for this is simple: in a new report published today by Global Britain we show the Chequers Plan is the Single Market by another name – and remaining in it (rather than accessing it) would be damaging to British economic interests. The key myth propagated in favour of the Single Market is that it is central to UK prosperity. It is not. Our report demonstrates that the UK trades well with the world but poorly with the EU. This is odd as the UK has no special trade arrangements with the US, China or Australia yet runs a small trade surplus with the rest of the world, but a very large deficit with the very region with which we have a customs union – the EU. For example, our report exposes the contradiction that the UK enjoys a trade surplus with the US – arguably the most competitive market in the world – without having a trade deal, but suffers a huge trade deficit of £96bn with the EU where Single Market membership is the equivalent of a trade deal. Due to its bureaucratic approach, the EU is in structural decline. It has underperformed every other region in the world for a generation. This is not a coincidence as other advanced economies including the US, Canada and Australia have powered ahead. It is the institutional arrangements of the EU – and the single currency in particular – that have resulted in rapid economic decline and socially unacceptable levels of unemployment in much of the EU. The EU’s trend towards centralised regulation undermines competition and increases regulatory burden. Within the Single Market framework provided by adoption of a common rule book, the UK would continue to be beholden to needless regulation and legal creep as EU lawyers interpret a definition of EU competence well beyond merely trading standards and into to many other areas of national life. The EU has also failed to sign global free trade deals with many of the world’s most important partners including the US, China and Australia. Inside the EU, the UK cannot strike its own deals with the many much faster growing nations. Because the EU is a diverse group of 28 nations, agreement is highly problematic and cumbersome, hence the failure to reach agreement. Outside the EU, the UK can much more readily strike free trade deals. It is now apparent from comments from the US, China, Australia, India and others that far from being ’at the back of the queue’, other countries are very keen to strike mutually beneficial free trade deals with the UK. This will allow the UK to rebuild its historic mission of encouraging global free trade that has gone off track over the last 40 years as the UK has surrendered its trade policy, so unsuccessfully, to the EU. It is also a myth that the UK needs to be part of the Single Market to trade with it. This is clearly not the case. All nations have access, outside a tiny number under sanction (North Korea and Syria for example) so long as they comply with local regulations. One does not need to join China to trade with it any more than one needs to join the EU. It is clearly in the EU’s interests to agree a zero tariff deal with the UK – such as a Canada-style agreement. There are many reasons for this but the primary one is simply because the EU sells more to the UK than the UK sells to the EU. It would be nonsensical to undermine its own trade particularly at a time when EU growth is so weak. If, however, the EU refuses to do so within a reasonable timeframe, the UK should leave the EU without a formal agreement on 29th March 2019, relying on WTO rules and striking free trade deals with our global partners. This outcome would be far better than what the Chequers Plan offers because the UK would otherwise be saddled with no say on Single Market regulation. To remain under the jurisdiction of the common rule book, effectively still under EU jurisdiction, having left the EU, is a Remain option that delivers a sovereignty illusion – with no say, low growth and a high regulatory burden that would lock in perpetual trade deficits. That is why Chequers must be chucked and a Canada-style deal for the whole UK used as the template for a new relationship.