ursaminotaur
The TCA which the UK negotiated with the EU gets rid of tariffs so to impose tariffs on particular goods would mean tearing up the TCA and end up with the UK and EU both imposing tariffs making trade between them even more costly than it is now. The current problems that the UK has are to do with non-tariff barriers and the government's insistence on the right to diverge (even though in many areas there is little sign that they will diverge and little reason to do so). The Single market is by definition protectionist since those within it benefit from it whereas those outside do not - however that is true of any FTA (those countries party to the FTA get better trade conditions than those who do not have such an FTA and instead trade on WTO terms). That is just the nature of trade agreements. By virtue of the fact that the EU has many more FTAs than any other country or trade block it is in fact one of the least protectionist trading areas. Unfortunately the UK could under this government only agree a rather threadbare limited FTA because of its ideological concerns with sovereignty and the theoretical right to diverge which leaves it subject to lots of non-tariff barriers which a better deal (or the current deal supplemented with things like an SPS - Sanitary and Phytosanitary - agreement) would remove.
PS 1. Going to WTO terms and then negotiating a trade deal with the EU afterwards would have devasted UK industry. When Article 50 was written not enough time was allowed for both the withdrawal and negotiating the new trading arrangement hence the need for May to ask for additional time in the form of the transition period to prevent us having to have a period of trading under purely WTO terms.
PS 2. As to the Human Rights act, apart from the fact that all EU members are required to have signed up to it, it has nothing to do with the EU. The UK's Human Rights act is the implementation in UK law of the European Convention on Human Rights ( ECHR ) which is run by the Council of Europe which is a separate body from the EU and contains 47 member states. It is also worth noting that the ECHR was largely written by the UK and specifically the British lawyer and Conservative politician David Maxwell Fyfe who based it upon the rights that he believed the British had at that time.
Much of the current trouble comes down to the EU acting in bad will.
The whole idea that the UK may diverge from the procedures laid down for many products by the EU as an excuse to make it near impossible to export various goods that have not diverged from what was acceptable before Brexit is a clear example of bad will.
A very similar situation exists regarding Northern Ireland.
Another example is the dumping of economic migrants on the UK from France.
For international relations to work, good will is a necessary requirement.
If the UK leaving the EU was economic suicide and that the UK can not survive outside to the EU then the obvious solution is to let the UK do what ever it wants, sure in the knowledge that it will hang itself and come back pleading for re-admission.
If however, the EU fears a successful UK would lead to other nations leaving, the bad will that has existed since Brexit is clearly explained.
As things are the UK looks to be on a path of lingering connections that boost the hopes of the re-joiners that the UK will eventually rejoin competing with another group within the UK who wants to sever all connections leading to immense internal friction that will do no one any good and is in itself a clear signal that a democratic choice is not accepted by the politicians.
I have no idea what will happen but at this point a clean break looks the best option as the EU have acted to sour relations and all the benefits of united purpose within the UK are being lost with the potential for this to continue until some re-join party gets a mandate and then a whole host of new negotiations paralyse things for another several years.
Regards,