Brexit: By-passing Sir Humphrey

Only one radical plan for Brexit has been made since the referendum: John Redwood, and like-minded MPs, propose the UK repeals the 1972 legislation under which we entered the Common Market in the first place.
 
There are attractions to this. For example, it would allow us to take back control of our fisheries, decide our own agriculture policies, and stop sending cheques to Brussels.
 
It also involves no negotiation, the UK would unilaterally decide what continues, leaving the other 26 member states to propose an alternative – if they could ever agree one.
 
This would be a real benefit since the UK has lost all its trade negotiators and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are notoriously underwhelming as is. It could spare us years of uncertainty.
 
Unfortunately, the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties (1969),  does not allow us to scrap a treaty just by passing or repealing a law. But it does allow a unilateral termination if there has been a "fundamental change" in circumstances since the treaty was agreed.
 
The Common Market the UK joined in 1972 is a far cry from today's centralised Federal State with its own currency, diplomatic service and (emerging) army. And the UK population was not consulted on the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, which made truly fundamental changes.
 
Another “fundamental change” is the non-delivery of the “subsidiarity” promised by Article 5 of the Lisbon treaty, under which the great majority of new regulation would be left to member states. Brussels has successfully challenged every attempt to do that and subsidiarity never happened. When the UK signed the Lisbon treaty it could not have known the EU would behave in this way.
 
Lisbon is a multilateral treaty between 27 independent countries, not the EU, which is not yet an actual state. If the UK followed Redwood's idea it could refuse to deal with the EU, since it has not signed a treaty with the EU.
 
Probably the dispute would be kicked upstairs to the United Nations. That should provide employment for diplomats into the foreseeable future, but meanwhile, the UK would be free to act as it chooses. The agenda for discussion would be interesting, but:
 
• On contributions to the EU budget, Norway only pays because its EU exports are 50% higher than its imports. On this logic the EU should be paying the UK.
• The UK would not be bound by EU regulations domestically nor when exporting to other parts of the world.
• The free movement of people has no logical link with common market access and is purely a political bargaining chip. The UK population has already demonstrated its views on the issue.
• Post-Brexit, the UK would not be bound by the Common Fisheries Policy – and indeed, it should adopt fishing rules similar to Iceland’s, as the ASI has recommended.
 
This leaves only tariffs for discussion and civil servants would not be required for that. The UK has plenty of business people well qualified in international price negotiation. Battles are won by the unexpected.