If the UK does this, its companies will not automatically be able to bid for procurement contracts abroad—in the EU, US, Japan, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc
OPTION ONE: Make a loud noise about this to win votes, but don’t actually do it. Britain would not violate the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
This is not an original thought. Politicians do it everywhere
I’ve looked into the background of this tariff quota.
The 260,000-tonne duty-free tariff quota for raw cane sugar is entirely new and opened up unilaterally by the British government. It is not required under the UK’s commitments in the WTO.
As an EU member UK duty-free imports of raw cane sugar came under a commitment by the EU28 to have a low-duty (not zero) tariff quota of at least 770,935 tonnes shared among Australia, Brazil, Cuba and anyone (“erga omnes”).
The UK and EU27 proposed in the WTO that after Brexit the UK’s share would be only 66,050 tonnes (8% of the original total). The rest would be taken up by the EU27 including 100% of Cuba’s tariff quota