The Public Accounts Committee has published a new report this morning on the lack of apparent benefits from post-Brexit trade deals. The press release says:
In a report today the Public Accounts Committee says “there is no guarantee” that the new international trade agreements being negotiated by the Department for International Trade “will deliver actual economic benefits” and it remains opaque and secretive about the deals it is negotiating – publishing its own “impact assessments” of new trade deals prior to implementation but not setting any associated targets or providing the information to Parliament and the public to allow them to assess the practical, real-world impact of the new deals, or if the interests of businesses and the public are actually being served.
They added:
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “The Department for International Trade seems to have forgotten that its first and core duty is to deliver for UK consumers, business and our environment - to create deals that will deliver real economic benefits while offering the choice of food, goods and services at the standards and prices they expect and have long enjoyed. The PAC has previously expressed concerns that our consumer protection system is unable to deal with the new arrangements, and recent reports of tax fraud and modern slavery breaches cast doubt on capability in other critical parts of the trade system. "
Sir Geoffrey is, of course, a Tory. These reports are always issued with cross-party consent.
What is being said here is that MPs cannot find the benefit in the UK being able to negotiate its own trade deals. Given that membership of the EU was a trade deal, at its core, this matters. What they are saying is that they cannot find a benefit from Brexit. And they are saying the government won't name that benefit. That's because, I rather strongly suspect, they think there are no benefits from Brexit.
When will this finally be admitted by the government?
And when can we talk about the only post-Brexit trade deal which really matters, which is our readmission to the EU?
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The Government cannot admit this because those aims and objectives were never valid in the first place – they never existed.
BREXIT was nothing more than a perverted minority view about Britain’s place in Europe which ended up being turbo charged /enabled by dodgy money. That’s all it is and ever was.
We’re still waiting to hear about that story. I wonder if we ever will?
Pilgrim
I am going to – slightly-disagree. I think Brexit was to impose a more extreme ‘free market’ economy without the inconvenience of having to present it as a programme in a general election.
It is also about rigging the rules to ensure a particular ( partly invisible to the general public) group can control the economy, media, courts and political system, so they can stay in power and extract wealth from economy for the benefit of the few.
Yes
True
But I was playing their game
“And when can we talk about the only post-Brexit trade deal which really matters, which is our readmission to the EU?”
I honestly think it will be at least a decade. Whilst both major parties concentrate on a small part of the population in the so-called Red Wall no talk of rejoining will cross a major Tory or Labour politicians lips.
The next election will be fought over which party can make Brexit work for Britain. Which you would think might be awkward for the party that is not making it work (as if anyone could make Brexit work better than actually being part of the EU.) But someone else will be in charge by then and the Conservatives have become masters at fooling the public into think a new leader means a new government.
Brexit was not about trade – it was about “sovereignty” and keeping “forriners” out !
Well said!
Alex
I want you to be right about the next election.
However, what Timothy Snyder calls ‘eternity politics’ – whereby the same threats and ogres used to convince people to vote for BREXIT will be simply wheeled out again – with some new enemies of the people created for good measure – may well be used again.
I think that we need to realise that Johnson and Co went ‘all in’ on BREXIT. The lies were so big, and the corruption correspondingly so big that they have no option but to keep lying and keep up the pretence. They’ve back themselves into a corner.
I still think that only ending Johnson internally from inside the Tory party is going to get us out of this.
While I wholeheartedly support the concept of “ending Johnson internally from inside the Tory party”, or indeed ending Johnson in any way, I fail to see how that will actually improve anything. As he will be replaced by a Tory who has been complicit in all that Johnson has done. I don’t think that will change anything that matters. What it may change is the Tory party’s re-election chances, as they will be able to blame the ousted Johnson for all ills and insist that the new Tory party is the only one with the ability to govern.
Whilst I note your central point Cyndy – I do think that if Tory MPs feel that they are going to lose their jobs because of the recession that looks to be on the way, they may try to topple Johnson.
I know its thin gruel, but some of those Tories actually joined the party because they believed in levelling up etc., and the one nation side of Toryism that may yet bounce back. Not all Tories have been gloating and I’d settle for a one nation Tory over this lot especially since Labour are so cowed at the moment.
This Russian business may well be something some Tories feel the need to get rid of too, and that has grown under Johnson and his coterie.
But if we want the Tory party dead and gone (as a political force) then HM Opposition really need to get their act together and work together. I just don’t see it happening – and I hope you know better. But if we must have a tory Government, nicer Tories are better than really bad Tories in my view.
The great paradox of Brexit is that the far right of the Tory party wanted to leave the EU because it was insufficiently neo-liberal, while most of those that voted for Brexit, particularly the ex-Labour voters and those that previously self-identified as “not interested in politics”, had correctly concluded that the last forty years of neo-liberalism, whether they understood the term or not, had effectively destroyed their quality of life.
GB would have to join the single market and customs union first. That shouldn’t be controversial given most leavers said we could be like Norway or that only a madman would leave the single market