A few trade stories around in the UK yesterday that you may have missed - problems at the WTO over our independent schedules and more on US food standards the main two. And none of it is being properly debated... 1/
Starting with the UK's proposed quotas for agricultural goods at the WTO - we'd hope to go through a process of simply asserting what they would be, but there have now been multiple objections so a full negotiation looms 2/
This doesn't mean we aren't full members of the WTO or can't trade. The meaning rather lies in the fact that these negotiations need to be essentially complete before we can think of completing bilateral trade agreements - as they are strongly linked. Might take time 3/
Also at the WTO, the US and others have objected to our proposals to maintain membership of the Government Procurement Agreement, which is more serious as it provides UK companies with enhanced global access to public procurement 4/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
In both cases at the WTO this is an opportunity for other countries to ask for more market access from the UK, and such opportunities don't come around too often so it isn't surprising they'll be taken. 5/
Then we had another story from @adampayne26 at Business Insider on US food standards and a potential UK-US trade deal prompting this rather blunt reply from Secretary of State Liam Fox 6/
Original story uk.businessinsider.com/rat-hairs-and-… here, and more detail from Richard North here in usual 'I'm the only real expert' style eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?… on why this may not be such a big deal. But it adds to justifiable questions about a US deal 7/
We are six months from having an independent UK trade policy (with constraints, but all countries have constraints in their trade policy) and there is still no mechanism to properly discuss trade policy issues in Parliament 8/
Let us say the answer to the procurement problem is giving more access to NHS contracts. Maybe a bit controversial? Or huge rises in agricultural quota (or scrapping them), or chlroniated chicken? Big issues, no place to discuss them. 9/
Brexit dominates everything political right now, that's clear. But the effect of being outside of the EU will be a lot more decisions that the UK has to take. Our government is secretive and institutions weak. This needs to change or we will run into major problems 10/ ends
