So what's happening in UK trade policy, beyond Brexit? A thread round-up. Starting with what DIT has as their main focus, the consultations on trade agreements with US, Australia, NZ, and joining CPTPP. 1/ gov.uk/government/new…
Many people including me have asked if there is some big picture reasoning behind this choice. Probably not yet, but apparently these questions are now being asked inside Gov, and we see stories like this on visas 2/ ft.com/content/e585ee…
There appear to be a number of tensions within Government - in particular one often hears reports and rumours of tensions between DexEU and DIT on one side, and departments like Treasury and Foreign Office on the other 3/
Obviously the big question for UK trade policy being the nature of the future relationship with the EU - will we change food standards to join CPTPP or stay with EU food standards for example. And when will this be resolved? 4/
Then there's the existing EU agreements, and whether these will apply to the UK from March 2019. If there's a withdrawal agreement the EU will ask on behalf of the UK. The assumption is countries will say yes, that isn't certain - hard for business planning 5/
DIT is continuing the policy of not providing any meaningful information on the progress of 3rd country talks, which adds to business uncertainty, as this recent PQ answer shows 6/ 
Another uncertainty on our future trade policy comes in our work to re-establish WTO schedules - as @CoppetainPU wrote recently objections have as expected been raised to our plans on agriculture quotas which will take time to resolve 7/ tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/hap…
We discussed transition priorities at a @UKandEU conference yesterday - e.g EU negotiation, new trade deals, existing trade deals, policy decisions, influencing the EU, solving business issues - a huge workload 8/ ukandeu.ac.uk/research-paper…
Meanwhile the Trade Bill passed 2nd Reading at the Lords this week, and moves to next stage probably in November. Expect numerous amendments particularly on transparency, as well as Brexit related issues like Customs Union 9/
Against this backdrop it was good to outline a more positive vision @BigTentIdeas last week - for a UK trade policy centred on consensus, high quality, and helping small business - more in this to follow in coming weeks 10/
Watch out for upcoming @UKTradeForum events and articles on UK trade policy - with apologies our CPTPP event with @VangelisVNZ is now fully booked. I've probably forgotten something (trade remedies, mostly under control I hope...), but that's all for now 11/ ends
