[DrPretorius]

I get your point. But the UK could have negotiated their own trade agreements and lived with the repercussions. They just chose to go along with the EU restrictions. The Common Market, which was focused on the Eurozone, was never intended to subsume national sovereignty for its members outside that region. That it was allowed to morph itself into a latter day Roman Empire that claimed powers it never should have had is a testament to the craven nature of the European bureaucracy and the cowardliness of most of its European subjects. Until now, that is...

[Winniesboy]

Leaving aside your broader observations, I think you're still missing the basic point that acting as a unified trading bloc rather than individual members states trading in isolation was the fundamental purpose of the EU and its predecessors, the EC and the EEC. Everything else grew from that beginning. You mention the Eurozone: but the Eurozone (the countries using the Euro) is irrelevant to this, since the Euro wasn't invented until many years after the Common Market was established.

The existence of that unitary trading bloc was the reason the UK (and others) chose to join in the first place. It's obvious that the ability to negotiate deals as a bloc would be fatally undermined if individual member states were free to strike side deals on their own. Every new member, first of the EC, subsequently the EU, fully understands this and signs up to it on joining - it's not something retrospectively forced on them by an all-powerful EU. It was something the UK actively wanted, not some kind of bitter pill subsequently enforced.

The EU currently has trade deals with over 50 countries, with many more in preparation. The full list is here:

European Union Free Trade Agreements

These are now de facto the UK's agreements. They will case to be so when the UK leaves.