Trade deals are not essential to trade. While they are nice to have and provide legal basis to tariffs, if there is a demand for products, trade will continue.
I have
never said that we can't trade without trade deals. None-the-less having trade deals does help us trade and my point was about the impact of uncertainty generated by on-going negotiations not the trade deals themselves so going "but we could trade anyway" is not much of a comeback.
The UK is a large enough entity in terms of political influence and maintaining a stable currency in relation to Europe and the US will continue to provide service to the world markets.
I'm not really sure how you think this is a response to the line from my post you're quoted above it. Yeah, we'll carry on having our currency and we'll carry on having some influence; that influence will be less than it would be if we stay within the EU and retain our influence over the other countries inside the EU via EU mechanisms and across the world as magnified by the EU.
Anyone with enough saleable talent or services would be able to live anywhere in the world. Automatic rights are surely what is the problem here.
I don't think they're a "problem"; I think they're a huge benefit. While it is true that skilled workers can get work anywhere, this doesn't compare to the ease of the right to work. Visas are costly (for example, an Indian girl in my lab had to pay over a thousand pounds to gain the right to work in the UK and pay taxes to support our state), often tedious or difficult to obtain and - because of their conditional nature - provide no stability or security. Also, while skilled workers may obtain visas for themselves with relative ease, obtaining visas for your partner to work and for your family is typically an additional challenge. Finally, none of this helps any British people who
don't count as highly skilled who currently enjoy the huge benefit of freedom to live and work.
Rights like the working time directive are extremely unlikely to be repealed. The trend overall is for reduced hours and more workers. I have not seen anywhere in industry where the 48 hour average working week is likely to be increased.
Really? You don't think the Tories would get rid of it, given a chance. You do realise that it's listed by some of them as "Brussel's interference" and a reason some of them want to leave?