Claim d59838e4Checked 09 Jul 2026
UnsupportedOn the evidence scale
“Anything the EU did for us could have been achieved through normal, bilateral negotiation and agreement.”
Reasoning & Evidence09 Jul 2026
The claim is too broad and is not supported. EU treaty rules give the Union exclusive competence over the customs union and common commercial policy, and the EU itself negotiates international agreements in those areas, rather than leaving them to ordinary bilateral deals by member states. Official EU material on the single market also says it is built on the four freedoms, and it distinguishes full EU membership from only partial access via bilateral agreements, as in Switzerland’s case. So some EU outcomes could be approximated by bilateral arrangements, but not "anything" the EU did for the UK. Sources: EUR-Lex, *Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union — Article 2* (`https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/LSU/?uri=celex%3A12016E002`); EUR-Lex, *International agreements* (`https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM%3Ainternational_agreements`); Consilium, *The EU single market: benefits, facts and figures* (`https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/the-eu-single-market-benefits-facts-and-figures/`).
From article
Not that we couldn’t have achieved through normal, bilateral negotiation and agreement, no. Not one thing.
I have no doubt, what is being developed in Brussels is bad. These are bad people. Bad, bad people. We are in the grip of extreme nationalists in Brussels.
Sources opened+ 36 search hits considered
| [1] | eur-lex.europa.eu |
| [2] | eur-lex.europa.eu |