Thread by @Tom_Clarke

Who doesn't love a sweet Australian import, eh?

But actual imported Aussie cane sugar is way more complicated.

The future trade deal with 🇦🇺 is right now being thrashed out in the Cabinet.

And, I just can't get it out of my thread...👇

Firstly, here's a big blue factory in London Docklands.

Make a note. This is important. We'll come back to this. 👇

So there's a bust up over the trade deal with Down Under.

The land of Oz is massive with huge farms & big economies of scale. But these farms also have different rules on how to produce food than we do.

Things like the chemicals they can use, water use & acceptable pollution

Understandably, Aussie farmers would like to be able to sell their wares here without any restrictions or tariffs.

The PM, too, is keen to get his hands on the fun bags of some cheap Australian sweeties

Here's that factory again. Don't forget it.

So Big....

So Blue....

Australians are pretty upfront people. They publish all their negotiating aims, and the submissions from lobbyist ahead of any trade negotiation.

Fair dinkum!

Not quite the same story with us Poms...

Here the government says things it doesn't mean.
Like "UK farming standards will be protected".
Like "no deal is better than a bad deal"

Brits, like me, have to put in Freedom of Information requests to find out what is really going on 🕵🏻‍♂️

So I did. Here's what I found out

On Jan 1st 2020, the Govt gave away ⅛ of the UK sugar market for nothing in return; granting an 'ATQ' (zero tariffs) for 260k tons of imported cane sugar.

It said this would have no effect on prices or competition, but would help secure trade deals.

We should be so lucky 🤔

As an aside.

Have you ever seen dangerous punctuation? The sort that threatens national security?
Well I can assure you that this full stop👇 is not a threat. It has been vetted.

It is, though, almost the only unredacted part of this paragraph I obtained under an FOI request

There was more.

The documents revealed it became the explicit aim of government policy to prop up the continued viability of the American cane sugar refinery in Docklands, by reducing the cost of their imported raw product.

It's also clear the Government plan to offer up more of our UK sugar market to low cost suppliers through negotiating new free trade deals - like that one with Australia.

Despite the backlash from poor, fair trade suppliers...

It turns out that big, blue factory can't make a decent enough profit buying fair-trade cane sugar from poor countries. They can only compete with cleaner, greener homegrown 🇬🇧 beet sugar, by getting tariff-free deals to import the cheapest stuff, produced in ways illegal here.

Sorry Kylie.

But in Oz, almost all sugarcane is grown in the Barrier Reef catchment.
Run off is a serious environmental concern.
In Oz they regularly use 24 different pesticides illegal in the UK, including persistent neonic Clothianidin and mammal-toxic Paraquat.

Of course the Australian Government has strict rules and high standards which seek to protect this precious and unique environment.

theguardian.com/environment/20…

But cane sugar generally has a bigger, badder impact on the environment than goody two shows homegrown beet sugar.

So why are our government so keen to keep a foreign-owned cane refinery propped up?

Jobs? Levelling up?

There are 850 jobs at the big, blue factory in London..

In contrast, across the East Midlands and East Anglia...

Is it because a trade deal with Australia would just be so valuable it's worth selling out our green, sustainable homegrown beet farmers?

Hmmm, not so much. DIT figures show that a deal with Oz and NZ would still only boost UK GDP by 0.02%.

Over ten years.

Does @trussliz have an interest?
YES! The biggest beet sugar factory in Europe is in her constituency, and loads of her voters are financially reliant on sugar beet.
So if there are more cane giveaways, the MP for South West Norfolk could find it a fairly uncomfortable seat...

So what's going on?

Whoops! How did that get there👇

Oodles of ill-informed opportunistic Whoopsy!

(N.B. golden syrup is made from sugar beet, which does grow in the UK - very well, environmentally sustainably, supporting British jobs.

The crop that doesn't grow here and has to be imported is sugarcane.)

But now you know that.

Better the devil you know.

I think a few people may have missed the all important by line on this 2012 telegraph article. So here it is, bigger.

Oops it was 1st Jan 2021, this year. Not last year...

...Ball of confusion
When nothing is new, and
There's nothing doin'
Step back in time