by Sascha Klocke
Mises.org
On Tuesday, during a somewhat raucous session of the European parliament, Nigel Farage gave his post-Brexit “victory speech”. Besides his trademark taunting of his pro-EU colleagues, Mr Farage made an important point, suggesting:
Why don’t we be grown up, pragmatic, sensible, realistic and let’s cut between us a sensible tariff-free deal and thereafter recognise that the United Kingdom will be your friend, that we will trade with you, cooperate with you, we will be your best friends in the world.
This statement, like most of Mr Farage’s speech, was greeted with jeers. While the reaction could simply be regarded as being due to Mr Farage’s earlier taunting and to the emotional nature of the post-Brexit debate, it seems to hint at a deeper issue, which has been brought up on the Mises Wire several times: That the European Union is not primarily about free trade for mutual benefit, but about political integration and economic harmonisation, in which free trade is just the reward for going along with the political ambitions of Brussels.