I'm happy to admit I didn't fully understand the direction of tariffs and who controls what. However, as outlined we have the EU tariffs ourselves by proxy, until we change them, so there are tariffs on our exports. And as you outlined, while technically possible for us to zero rate all exports, its highly unlikely especially for industries we wish to protect - whisky, farming etc. So I'm not sure I did 'misunderstand' the general points. On the other hand I think you said WTO means a maximum tariff - which really is misunderstanding WTO terms!
My initial point was WTO was costly, and not in anyone's interests, as your second sentence outlines. Now I'm a lot clearer on the detail.
Look at my responses I have always been clear that zero Tariffs was exceedingly unlikely and WTO levels would be crap for us. I was pulling you up on a statement of fact, not to be an arse but it makes it easy to disregard your other points which I agree with.
I have consistently said the MFN means that you have to treat all WTO members equally, however the Schedules that the EU have committed to are the Bound Tariff rates
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/bound-tariff-rate.html. So again this means that they inherit the Bound Tariff but these are a maximum that can be charged, if we wish we can go below these levels but we would have to do this equally for all WTO members.
I am not an international economist but have done a fair bit of reading on this subject and have also provided a fair links backing up my statements. If you think WTO rules are different to this please tell me how and provide background and I will happily be corrected.
The reason this is bad to inherit these levels is the EU will have different objectives to the UK alone, we may want higher Tariffs on Sausages when we leave but we will be restricted by the terms the EU agreed.
Bound Tariffs
Bound tariffs are specific commitments made by individual WTO member governments. The bound tariff is the maximum MFN tariff level for a given commodity line. When countries join the WTO or when WTO members negotiate tariff levels with each other during trade rounds, they make agreements about bound tariff rates, rather than actually applied rates.
Bound tariffs are not necessarily the rate that a WTO member applies in practice to other WTO members' products. Members have the flexibility increase or decrease their tariffs (on a non-discriminatory basis) so long as they didn't raise them above their bound levels. If one WTO member raises applied tariffs above their bound level, other WTO members can take the country to dispute settlement. If the country did not reduced applied tariffs below their bound levels, other countries could request compensation in the form of higher tariffs of their own. In other words, the applied tariff is less than or equal to the bound tariff in practice for any particular product.
http://blogs.worldbank.org/trade/picture-trade-types-tariffs-explained
