Thread by @lunaperla

Dear .@SirRogerGale

You asked a good question today: to what extent are new trade deals smoke & mirrors?

It deserved a better answer.

JJ was wrong on many points. Fox committed to rolling over 40 FTAs by midnight 27MAR19. THAT was what folk said cldn't be done, and it wasn't.

https://twitter.com/UKTradeBusiness/status/1382602982705991680

As we know, Liz Truss is STILL negotiating some of them over 2yrs later! Disingenuous of JJ to move the goalposts & pretend it was said it could NEVER be done. Those who know about trade know it takes time: roughly 2.8mths per FTA, but yes, should've been quicker for roll-overs.

Please read Fox's House of Lords evidence, when he admitted some roll-over deals are not as good, since countries are not prepared to extend the same terms to a market of 66m as to a market of 454m.

That's how trade deals work. How big is your market? What access will you give?

JJ was telling another fib when he said the roll-overs were marginally better. They are not —unless you count the concession Truss won to sell a little more Stilton to a country whose inhabitants are 70-100% lactose intolerant. On balance, no.

To check this for yourself, please see the Dept of Intl Trade's analysis of the yield of each deal (where these exist).

You'll see UK-JAP deal yields roughly 1/2 of EU-JAP deal.

Our 0% tariff quota with Japan is only what is unused of the EU's 0% tariff quota.

Humiliating!

JJ says we can increase trade thru regulatory divergence.

In 5yrs of listening to Brexiters, not a single one of you has come up with concrete proposals for divergence or credible analysis of benefits of it.

PM is so clueless, he recently tasked businesses with figuring it out!

As to small & med-sized firms, the tragedy of Brexit is that it was predicated on an ideological hatred that led to an "either or" approach to trade — either with the EU OR with non-EU countries.

In the EU, UK & every other MS had BOTH, and SMEs benefited. We were always global!

By raising barriers with our nearest & biggest market we've priced SMEs out of the market. Imagine a single mum with a small co. exporting to EU. She might be able to get child care to pop over to EU for a day, but not for shlepping to China for a week to do the same transaction.

Brexit should never have been sold as a *trade optimisation* strategy. Raising trade barriers is never that, & being able to negotiate your own trade deals is absolutely worthless if the deals you negotiate are worse, and you strip your citizens of freedoms to gain that capacity.

Sorry, when discussing regulatory divergence, I should have mentioned that the only way the UK has diverged (so far) is Raab saying "restricting" trade because of human rights abuses would mean missing out on “growth markets”.

Makes me ashamed to be British.

One final point: JJ claiming Brexit isn't as bad as everyone thought it might be, by citing a statistic that only pertains to ONE economic sector (Haulage, -68%) when economy-wide exports fell 40% in January against a -35% forecast, is an example of dark arts sleight of hand.

Given all the dishonest spin around statistics (volume of freight ≠ volume of trade, Lord Frost, as many of those journeys are empty), you might be forgiven for thinking Brexit isn't so bad.

If our Media covered Brexit without fear or favour, Govt would come down on them hard.

Despite the blackout, some news is filtering thru.

JJ spoke glibly of winners & losers. So far, only losers.

Many firms have experienced Brexit as if it was no deal. Their business has completely collapsed.

westcountrybylines.co.uk/my-small-busin…

Govt depts don't have a clue, or else they know, but provide deceptive advice to string folk along.

eg EU rule of no shellfish imports from countries whose waters aren't classA (UK = classB). UK signed them! UK Govt knew! It's not a ban! It's structural.

westcountrybylines.co.uk/defra-says-get…

As JJ mentioned, "Brexit isn't done yet". Heaven help us when grace periods end & full-on Brexit kicks in, if this is what it's like with the TCA only semi-enacted.

Rules of origin will be a problem, esp. as Frost failed to negotiate RoO triangulation.
westcountrybylines.co.uk/think-brexits-…

I'm sorry this isn't more optimistic, as I know you wanted an optimistic answer, but surely knowing the truth of a matter is better? Otherwise, how can you fix it and find real grounds for optimism?

Have a good afternoon, and thank you for your participation in the panel.